


In Service of Heaven

by vamprav



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blanket Permission, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, God is a dick, Lucifer Redemption, Permanent Injury, Podfic Welcome, Pseudo-Incest, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 51,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28853253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Izareal may have been one of Lucifer’s Star Weavers but she didn’t Fall with the Legion. Now she was scrambling to stop the Apocalypse before it can even start and keep the Winchester boys sane while Heaven hung over her head like the Doom of Damocles and time is running out.
Relationships: Lucifer/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 21





	1. Prologue: Star Weaver

**Author's Note:**

> In relation to the tags, Izareal is missing a wing, also I do not consider Lucifer and Izareal siblings but they are both angels so...
> 
> This was also originally posted on the Quantum Bang(quantumbang.org) and there is art there made by the fantastic DarkJediQueen that can be found here: http://quantumbang.org/artist-showcase-darkjediqueen-for-in-service-of-heaven/

Most of the remaining angels forgot that Lucifer wasn’t the only one to make stars. Oh, he was the first to do it, the one to come up with the idea but he wasn’t the only one who had taken up the task.

There was a whole choir of angels who he’d hand picked to create stars with him. Who he’d taught the craft of taking hydrogen and turning it to helium, to making a ball of gas blaze bright with blue and red and yellow light, waking a flame in empty space and giving it life.

Most of them had Fallen, had rebelled with Lucifer because he was the one who led them, who cherished them like children. Most of them had never even seen God beyond their creation and their Naming so what use had they, what love had they for their creator?

Izareal was one of the few that hadn’t Fallen. She’d made Izar, the second brightest in the Bootes constellation and…

God had named the stars.

God had named the stars first and then the angels who had made them. So Izareal was named after Izar but her name also meant “star of god” and Lucifer was the Morning star and she felt connected through their names but…

But Izareal didn’t Fall with Lucifer and his Legion. She stayed, she stayed because maybe there was something to be salvaged within Heaven. She could see the darkness festering in the hearts of her siblings and, while she was only one of many, maybe she could make a difference.

That didn’t happen. Instead the Garden of Eden… did.

The Garden was beautiful and bright, with luscious plants and animals of every kind. At the center of it there was a tree. A tree with fruits that hadn’t been named yet, they were a bit like apples and a bit like pomegranates and like neither at the same time.

There had been a man in the Garden, the first man and God had named him Adam. Then, God had made Lilith, the first woman, out of the same clay with which he had made Adam. She had been beautiful, skin as dark as the earth she was made of with hair as golden as Lucifer’s sun and eyes that blazed blue star bright.

Izareal had looked at her and realized that she wanted to be like her, that she had wanted to be a woman as well. It had taken a while to figure out how to change her sexless form into one that was conducive to her gender but she had done it.

Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam. This was apparently a problem even though Izareal was almost certain that they could conceive in other configurations.

God had punished Lilith for her refusal and driven her from the Garden. Izareal knew that that was wrong, she didn’t know why she knew, didn’t know how she knew but Lilith was cast out nonetheless.

Izareal had followed her, tried to help her in her hour of need, the precarious tipping point between Heaven and Hell becoming harder and harder to balance upon with each passing day. Lucifer had gotten to her first.

Lucifer had found her and Lucifer twisted her. Lucifer kept her.

And that discouraged Izareal even more because Lucifer wasn’t the Morningstar anymore. Hell had changed him, turned him to a shadow of his former self. His light was harsh and cold rather than warm and bright.

One day, Gadreel had let a serpent into the Garden, thinking that it had wandered out and was just trying to return home. He had realized his mistake almost instantly and had gone to get reinforcements. He was just an angel after all and no match for someone as powerful as Lucifer had been, was still.

Lucifer had gone to Eve and it hadn’t taken much, not really. Izareal should know, she’d watched the entire thing with dawning horror. She’d been frozen, hadn’t been able to move, hadn’t been able to stop it, hadn’t been able to go for help because no one was allowed into the Garden except for those the Guardians let in.

They didn’t let in other angels as a rule and especially not Izareal. Izareal, who’s name was God’s Star, who’s name was too close to Morningstar.

All it had taken was a prod at Eve’s curiosity, a few honey sweet words, and she was tasting. Then she was angry, it was a fair response in Izareal’s opinion, Izareal who was meant to craft stars but had done nothing since the Fall, who had had no purpose since the Fall.

And then there was War.

From one taste of one fruit and a serpent in the Garden there was War and Death. And Izareal had tried to hide, tried to flee, tried desperately to stay on the fringes of the conflict.

But at the very end, at the very end she’d had to come see. When the demons, they’d called themselves demons and she didn’t know why, had been beaten back from Heaven’s Gate and Lucifer knelt before the entrance to Heaven’s pearly halls.

Before Micheal who stood in Judgement. Micheal, who raised his hand above his head to strike his brother down.

And Izareal, who had had enough of Death, had jumped between them. Had taken the blow for her brother, had taken the blade to her Grace, had felt it carve into her, slice a piece out of her.

She’d tumbled from the sky, screaming as a bloodied chunk of her wing followed her down. Rapheal had dived after her, beating his wings in an attempt to reach her as the other angels gazed on in horror.

That was when God finally dained to interfere.


	2. Chapter 1: Get Your Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal helps Sam Winchester out of a tight spot.

“Go get your gun, get your gun.” The voice was muffled by the thin walls of the house but was still clear enough to be heard.

The demons paused there attack as a woman with dirty blonde hair and glowing blue eyes rounded the open door. She had a shotgun slung over one shoulder and her hip was cocked to exaggerate the knife hanging from her belt.

“And let’s find out what it does.” The woman lowered her shotgun to a firing position. “Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.”

The crack of the shotgun’s retort seemed to snap the demon’s out of their revelry as the demon that had been choking Sam was launched across the room. Sam gasped for air as the two other demons rushed forward to meet the woman.

She dropped the shotgun and pulled the blade from its sheath, deflecting the punch from the male demon with her off hand. She ducked a blow from the female and slid behind the male to bury the blade in his spine.

“We haven’t won and if we win and if the morning light sets in.” She sang as the Demon glowed from the inside out and then crumpled to the floor.

The blonde turned to face the other woman, a manic grin on her face. “We’ve cheated fate again.”

“Shut up, feather brain.” The female demon snapped.

Sam was back on his feet and turning to meet the demon who’d been choking him out. He didn’t really have much to fight back with but he could keep the demon off of the blonde woman’s back until she finished up with the female demon.

“And to those who die please try to understand.” The woman sang like it was a taunt even as Sam tracked her movement by sound alone. “That for those who die we tried the best we can.”

There was a gurgling sound from the female demon and a thump as another body hit the floor. Sam deflected a punch and drove his own fist into the demon’s stomach.

“We got one foot in the grave, while the other ones kicking its way right down to hell. Duck!” Sam hit the floor as the blade went sailing over his head and buried itself to the hilt in the demon’s chest.

“Go get your gun, get your gun, imposing penance one by one.” Sam looked up to watch the woman dancing over the bodies and across the room towards him. “You’ve got a virtue in a vice, it forces fate you’re taking lives with all the history to guide, you’ve got a passion in those eyes. So aim it straight and true.”

She twirled past Sam to pull the blade from the demon’s chest and turned toward him with a grin on her face. Sam couldn’t help but smile back, her expression was infections.

“Hey.” She chirped.

“Thanks for the save.” Sam pushed himself up into a crouch and stood in one smooth motion.

“No problem.” She waved his words away with the blade in her hand.

Sam focused on it, it wasn’t like any other knife he’d seen before. It was silver, completely silver in a way not even real silver was and it looked vaguely liquid, like it was constantly shifting. The hilt was made of the same metal as the blade and almost perfectly round but it fit snugly in her hand. The blade was thin, almost like it was made of a piece of paper and curved slightly.

“Sam Winchester.” Sam held out his hand to shake.

“Izzy, but you can call me Z.” The woman shook it and then pulled him out of the way to throw her blade again.

It hit Ruby square in the chest, the brunette demon made a noise like a mouse being squashed under a shoe and crumpled to the floor. For a second there was a flash of pain deep in Sam’s chest but he didn’t really know Ruby, sure she’d been tagging along being him for a few days but she was a demon and some of her actions were starting to read as incredibly suspicious now that he was thinking about it.

“What’s that made out of?” Sam watched Z walk over to Ruby’s corpse.

She moved differently from most of the female hunters Sam had met, the few of them that took up the profession. Ellen and Jo both moved like predators, most did the same but there were a few that used their body as a seduction. Z didn’t move like either, she moved like a dancer, all graceful lines and fluid motion with no real intent behind it other than the movement themselves.

Sam took in her clothes as she crouched to pull her blade out of Ruby’s chest. She wore sturdy, black hiking boots and good quality jeans with a deep red leather belt wrapped around her waist. Her shirt was a deep blue color with a silver dragon printed across the back. It wasn’t really a typical hunting outfit with all the color on it but who was he to judge.

“Now that would be telling wouldn’t it?” Z gave him a look over her shoulder that was all mischief and predatory delight.

Sam realized with a start that her eyes were green, almost black with how saturated the color was. Green eyes, green like Dean’s were but not because Dean’s eyes were bright, so bright they almost glowed with it. He could have sworn that those eyes had been blue earlier.

“It wouldn’t be the first demon killing knife I’ve seen.” Sam told her.

“Oh, this can kill more than just demon’s, Sammy.” Z rose to her feet in one fluid motion.

“Don’t call me that!” Sam barked before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

Dean might not have always been aware of what the two of them looked like but once Sam had started getting taller than most of the kids in his grade he’d been hyper aware of it. Sam was tall and muscular and had been trained from birth to be a predator to things far more dangerous than most humans could ever dream of being.

That predator energy could be interpreted in a variety of different ways, most of them bad and women tended to be more perceptive of it than men. Sam had accidentally frightened a variety of girls when he was younger before he’d managed to perfect the helpless nerd front. It hadn’t really taken that long since Sam was a helpless nerd most of the time.

But he’d forgotten, he’d forgotten for half a second and his blood was still rushing with the adrenaline from the fight. He knew that his stance had gone from lazy lion in the sun and flipped right over into that of a pissed of jaguar.

Z just raised an eyebrow at him and held up both hands like she was placating a small yappy dog. “Alright, no Sammy, got it, Sam.”

Sam swallowed heavily and nodded in confirmation of her comment. She didn’t look scared, she didn’t even look vaguely wary. He should have expected that but his brain had shot straight into the juvenile panic that had always come with reverting back to base instinct. Jess had been one of maybe two or three women who’d never bowed to the whip crack of his temper when he pulled it out, even if it was only a brief step back, and the other had been a forty something cop who’d taken none of anyone’s shit let alone a sixteen year old caught out past curfew.

“You good, no injuries?” Z gave him a brief once over with her eyes.

“Throats a bit sore but other than that I’m good.” Sam said after a quick inventory of his body.

Z nodded and sheathed her knife. Sam blinked, he hadn’t noticed the sheath earlier but he didn’t know how he hadn’t, it was right there on her belt, up against her right hip.

“Were these guys your hunt or no?” Z asked.

“You didn’t come here for a hunt?” Sam’s brow furrowed as Z nudged Ruby’s arm with one boot.

“I was but if these assholes were the extent of it I have a few other hunts nearby that I can go check out. There’s a ghoul nest a few towns over that I want to take out before they graduate to living flesh. The last patriarch went that way and I’d rather not have to deal with them in a few months when the true hunger hits.” Z turned her wrist to check her watch.

“No, they were the hunt, it’s been nothing but demons for a while now. I should probably get a new hotel room though,” Sam told her.

“Good, need help hiding the bodies?” Z asked.

“That would be great thanks.”

Moving the bodies didn’t actually take all that long, there was a river behind the motel and Z was stronger than she looked. They didn’t really talk, just going through the motions of body disposal. Z made a few off color jokes though and one of them actually startled a laugh out of Sam.

It stopped almost as soon as it started but it surprised him when it happened. It had been weeks if not months since he’d had a decent laugh. The stress of trying to find Dean a way out of his deal had been a lot and then after… there wasn’t really much to laugh about after that. Sam had also been drunk for most of the time since and he tended towards more melancholy emotions when under the influence.

Z had looked quietly pleased when she got a laugh out of him and then they’d chucked Ruby’s corpse into the river and her lip had curled up in disgust.

“I hate two faced bitches.” She spat into the river after the brunette and Sam blinked.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“She was one of Lilith’s but all the demons were ranting about how she’d switched sides.” Z told him.

“How could you tell?” He asked, turning to face her more fully.

Z scoffed and tapped the center of her forehead. “I could see it, it’s hard to miss Lilith’s sigil written across her… soul.”

“How don’t the other demon’s know then? And how do you know she didn’t defect?” Sam asked.

“She’d have carved it out if she’d defected and demons are a bit limited when they’re in a body or looking at a body, can’t see past the human flesh. And some of them probably do know that she’s a double agent, Lilith for one but finding out what she was supposed to do is another story entirely. I was going to try to offer her asylum if she’d really taken the side of humanity, I know a few places where she could have hidden out but fuck that.” Z rolled her eyes.

“So you’re a psychic?” Sam asked.

“Closest thing I’ve found.” Z commented and there was a stretch of silence as they watched the bodies float downstream.

“I think I need to stop hunting demons for a while.” Sam muttered.

“Probably a good idea.” Z nodded.

“You said something about ghouls?” Sam asked.

Z beamed at him.

*****

Izareal put her head in her hands and tried to get her thoughts in order. She’d agreed to hunt with Sam Winchester, her brother’s destined Vessel. Truth be told she’d been planning to kill him not three hours ago, remove the Morningstar’s Vessel from the equation early enough and surely Heaven would realize that the Apocalypse wasn’t their Father’s will.

It wasn’t, it couldn’t be, He hadn’t been seen or heard of since that boy had been born, the one that had been hailed as His son. She should know, she still had a direct link up to the Old Channels even though she mostly ignored them. She wasn’t quite sure why but when Rapheal’s continued panic had come over about not being able to find God anywhere she’d wanted to bang her head against a wall.

She’d been planning to kill Sam but no, she couldn’t, not after she’d actually set eyes on him. Looking at him was a bit like looking at Lucifer before the Fall, he was bright and his face was kind and he gave off a warmth that she thought she’d never see again. Like looking at a little piece of Heaven that had been lost for a very long time.

Izareal hadn’t Fallen with the Legion, that was probably the only reason she was still alive. All of the original Fallen were dead, by Heaven’s hands or by making themselves human and dying that way.

Izareal hadn’t Fallen with the Legion, hadn’t followed who Lucifer had become down into the Pits of the newly made Hell. Her Fall had been later and far more painful than what those Fallen had experienced. The place where her left wing had been still ached with phantom sensation, she didn’t think it would ever stop.

Izareal hadn’t Fallen with the Legion but she hadn’t fought against them either. She had seen Lucifer and what he was and what he had been but she could not bring herself to take up arms against him. Not when he’d been the first one to see Izar, not when he’d been the one to praise her for it when she was Nameless, one of hundreds without a true identity or purpose.

It had been millennia since Izareal had gazed upon the visage of the brother that she had loved so dearly, the Moringstar in all his glory. Millenia to forget what it had been like to stand before him and remember all at once, memories tainted by what he’d become even when she’d nearly given up her life to save his.

Jumping between two Archangels… what a stupid idea. It was the craziest thing she’d ever done, the most dangerous too and she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

But Lucifer was still alive, in a Cage in the Pits of Hell but alive none the less and no more angel blood had been spilled that day, none but her own.

It had been millennia since the garden, since Adam and Eve and the War, the last time that Izareal had seen Lucifer but standing before his Vessel felt a bit like what she had felt in those moments after she’d made Izar. After she’d held it up above her head and laughed with joy and Lucifer had laughed with her, sharing the moment of pure happiness.

Izareal had seen Sam before she’d come through the door, had seen him before she entered the town even. His soul was bright, almost blindingly so and she hadn’t been ready for it.

She had planned to kill him, as quickly and efficiently as possible, no pain, no shock, nothing for him to even realize that he was dying before his soul left his body and his heart stopped beating and his lungs stopped breathing. But as soon as she’d laid eyes on that impossibly bright soul through the motel room wall her plans had changed drastically.

There were other ways to prevent the Apocalypse, there had to be other ways because she was not killing the bright soul in the other bed, not when he’d already been so damaged. He was damaged too, she could see the hairline cracks that were heartbreak and betrayal and the greyish stain that was the violation that was the demon blood forced on him shortly after birth.

It wasn’t too bad, not yet but the plans that Heaven and Hell had for him would break Sam into a thousand tiny pieces and she would not let that happen. She was nothing, a nobody angel named after a star, a flightless bird who hadn’t died when she should have but she would do everything in her power to protect this human soul. Even if that meant losing her other wing.

Izareal hadn’t Fallen with the Legion but that didn’t mean she hadn’t loved Lucifer just as deeply as every other angel who he’d mentored.


	3. Chapter 2: Ghoul of a Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wakes up with the worst headache of his life then he and Izareal deal with a nest of ghouls.

Sam woke up to the sound of the shower running and someone singing. For a second he thought it was Dean and joy swelled in his chest. Then the words and the sound of the voice broke through his sleepy fog and last night came rushing back to him.

The demon attack, Z, Ruby, moving across town to the other motel and passing out in exhaustion.

“I’m falling deep into a pit of vipers, over me, over me and I can’t break free.” Z sang and the tune was vaguely poppy in nature. “Secrets run deep when your in a pit of vipers, slithering, whispering, feel the venom poisoning me. Slither, slither, slither, put your fangs into my back. Slither, slither, slither, think I don’t know where your at.”

The shower shut off and Z switched songs, the tone going darker, melancholy almost on the turn of a dime. “Nonne vous launch angelis in nubibus, et gelida sanctificetur halls intercidet? None vos custodiet ex gratia eius ruina? Apertum est cor meum, et cornu erratur.”

The bathroom door opened as Sam sat up and Z stopped singing, face going abruptly red. Sam grinned and then the headache that had been hovering around his temples hit him full force. He groaned and pulled his legs up to bury his face in them.

“Sleep dep headache?” Z asked.

“Yeah. Was that latin?” Sam nodded before squinting up at her.

Z was wearing the jeans from yesterday and a brilliantly red shirt with a black snake coiled up with it’s head resting on one breast. She wasn’t wearing any shoes, which was fair given the shower and her blonde hair had been pulled up into a messy bun. The water clinging to the strands made the locks framing her face look vaguely like molten gold.

Z nodded, making the bun bounce as she danced her way over to the duffle bag Sam could swear she hadn’t had the night before. He’d been a bit out of it but he didn’t think he’d been that out of it.

There was something weird about Z but Sam had honestly been considering working with Ruby for the last few days so he didn’t really have room to talk. Plus she didn’t seem to care what hunts they went on from what he’d seen where Ruby had been dead set on killing Lilith.

He knew where that road led and while he was drunk he hadn’t particularly cared but he was stone cold sober right now, had been for the past few days. Ruby had insisted that if she was going to help him she wasn’t going to deal with the constant stench of johnny walker.

The fog of the alcohol had helped mask his automatic suspicion of Ruby and now that it was gone and she wasn’t standing right next to him some of the things she’d said and done were starting to really sink in. The fact that Z had said Ruby wore Lilith’s sigil written across her soul was helping him connect the dots but there were still large chunks of puzzle pieces missing and that was frustrating.

“Yes, I’m about as fluent as you can be in a dead language.” Z drew his attention back to her as she hopped on one leg in an attempt to get a sock onto her foot. “I also know quite a bit of enochian.”

“Angel language? How’d you learn that?” Sam asked.

“Curiosity.” Z finally gave up and sat down on the edge of her bed. “When are we rolling out?”

“Give me half an hour to shower and change.” Sam rubbed a hand over his face.

“Great!” Z chirped. “Breakfast burritos good for you?”

“I don’t care, just get coffee with the food please.”

The coffee Z grabbed was in a brown paper cup with a logo that Sam didn’t recognize on the side. Sam had given it a dubious look before taking a sip and losing any doubts he had about the coffee. It was heavenly, rich and dark and tasting vaguely like chocolate with just the right balance of milk and sugar to take the edge off the bitterness.

Z smirked at him when his eyes had gone wide and then fluttered shut, a pleasant little smile spreading over his lips.

The shower had done a lot to improve his good mood. The water pressure had been much better than most of the motels he and Dean had stayed in over the years and the smell of Z’s mint and apple body wash had lingered in the air, he liked the smell, it was soothing. The coffee just compounded his good mood and the burrito she handed him helped settle his grumbling stomach.

“Where did you get this?” He asked through a mouthful of food.

“There’s a little family place near the center of town, I passed it on my way in yesterday and decided to check it out.” Z told him.

They packed up and made their way out to the car but Sam paused when Z slung her duffle into the trunk of the impala with his own. He glanced around the parking lot, looking for her car but the only other vehicle in the lot was a motorcycle painted the same deep blue of the shirt Z had been wearing the previous day.

“That yours?” He asked.

“Yup, mind if I keep my bag in with you? Getting the duffle onto the back of that bike is a pain in the ass.” Z said.

Sam nodded his consent and narrowed his eyes. “Where do you keep all your weapons?”

“Shotgun and pistols are in the duffle, my blade’s always on me, and I’ve got a cross necklace so blessing holy water isn’t all that difficult. All I need is a dollar bill and vending machine and I’m set for a good two weeks.” Z told him before closing the trunk for him.

“Why not just buy an actual water bottle?” Sam asked.

“I tend to lose them, after the first few times of losing a thirty dollar investment after a week I gave up and just resigned myself to the vending machine water bottles.” Z grimaced, face flushing in obvious embarrassment. “So, do you want to follow me or are you good with directions.”

“I think I’ll just follow after you.”

*****

The ghoul nest was in the cemetery which had just made Z scrunch up her nose in mild disgust. The fight didn’t really take that long once Z had pulled out her blade out of her belt and went to town on the sister. Then again there were only two of them which was a lucky break given that the nest had apparently been sitting there for over a decade going on the number of bodies they’d found knawed down to the bone.

“I will never understand the obsession with cemeteries, it’s not sanitary, just move into an abandoned warehouse for fuck sake.” Z bitched as she tried to shake graveyard dirt out of her hair. “Any clue who these two were before those ghouls went to town on them?”

She was standing over the most recent corpses while Sam flicked through the stack of missing person’s reports they’d brought with them. They weren’t actually all that old and looked like they’d only been down there for about a week if not shorter. The woman hadn’t even had herself chewed on beyond the gaping hole where her tracia should have been.

She was blonde and in her early forties. She was also wearing a nightgown and fuzzy slippers which just looked plain bizarre if Sam was being honest.

The male corpse had been ripped to shreds but he looked like he’d been in his mid thirties and his skin was a dark chocolate color. He’d definitely been the main feeding corpse for the two ghouls before they’d snatched the woman.

“The man is probably Arthur Corigan, 26, worked nights in the cemetery digging graves and making sure idiot teens don’t knock over the grave markers.” Sam pulled out one of the sheets of paper and handed it to her.

Z looked at the picture and tried to compare it to the mass of flesh that had been the corpse’s face. He’d been handsome while he was alive, strong jaw, straight nose, scar through his right eyebrow.

Z skimmed over Arthur’s details, chewing at her lips. No next of kin and the report had been filed by his boss after he hadn’t showed up for his shift for two days. She sighed and looked between the two bodies that wore his face. The ghoul would be less cruel but the more recent death would make them look for a culprit and that could lead back to the two of them.

“And the woman is Kate Milligan, 43, single mother and works at the hospital, her son was the one to file the report. She’s only been missing for three days.” Sam said.

“Does the cemetery have security cameras?” Z asked, tapping the edge of the paper against her lips.

“No.” Sam took a second to try and follow Z’s train of thought. “You want to call them in to the cops?”

“Uh-huh, it’s just cruel to leave them down here unable to be found, especially the mother.” Z’s lips pursed in disapproval. “If we drag them to the edge of the wood and I call it in you can go back to the motel and pack up. The police will be more likely to believe that I went out for a morning walk and found them and not question me too hard. Sometimes stereotypes are a helpful tool.”

“You have graveyard dirt in your hair.” Sam pointed out.

“So I’ll pretend like I tripped over one of them.” Z rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve pulled this con before, Sam, it’s not like I don’t know how to act.”

Sam checked his watch. It was just past four thirty and dragging the bodies to the edge of the woods wouldn’t take that long. If Z didn’t get too much blood on her clothes it could be excused as tripping over one of the bodies. There was a secluded section of the cemetery with an old, half collapsed, stone wall separating it from the forest. If they put the bodies there then it wouldn’t take all that long and the fact that the bodies weren’t found earlier would be relatively believable.

“Are we using the ghoul corpses or their actual bodies?” Sam asked.

“Ghouls would be cleaner but that would mean a longer investigation and the time of death would line up suspiciously well with our arrival.” Z muzed.

They settled on dragging the actual victim’s bodies to the edge of the woods. Safety was a priority for the both of them now that Sam was starting to come out of his mourning fog. He still wanted a shot at Lilith and, barring that, to make the bitch’s life as difficult for her as possible.

Getting arrested would not help with that at all.

Plus, Z had pointed out the fact that they didn’t know whether or not the medical examiner would be able to tell that the ghouls weren’t human. After they’d gotten the two bodies to the edge of the woods, Sam went off to pack up their room and Izareal started setting up her cover story.

She waited a minute or two for Sam to get out of her sight, humming a few bars of a hymn under her breathe, before floating herself up a few millimeters and moving over to the edge of a wooded path about twenty yards away. Then she turned, set herself back down and started jogging along the crumbling wall that marked the edge of the cemetery.

Once Izareal reached the bodies she let herself hit the male corpse’s thigh before tripping over the two of them and letting out a theatrical scream for the benefit of whoever might be nearby. She carefully flipped herself over and scrambled away from the bodies before she pulled out her phone and dialed with one hand.

She took a deep breath as the dial tone went through and there was the little click that indicated the line connecting. She barely gave the woman on the other end time to say, “911, what is-” before she started babbling.

“Oh my god, okay, so, I went for a walk in the woods, which I know you’re not supposed to do this early or alone but I had a bad night and I’ve never had anything bad happening to me before. And if someone thought it was a bit weird, no big deal, we’re just passing through really, who cares if some grandma thinks I’m a bit odd, I’m never going to see her again after today but well now there’s a dead body. Actually no, there’s two and if you could send someone over here right now that would be great… Please.” Izareal was very good at babbling, she’d had a lot of practice after all and the art of saying a lot without saying anything at all was a skill she’d strived to perfect over the years.

“Ma’am, where are you?” The person on the other end of the line asked after a second of stunned silence.

“Um,” Izareal let the quiet hang for a few seconds before she answered, like she was actually looking around for any indicators of where she was, “cemetery, I think, there’s headstones over the wall I’m next too. I’m on the side closest to this really creepy crypt. Or at least I think it’s a crypt, it looks like the crypts they show in that really bad vampire show. The one with all the guys obsessed with one girl… and I think I just described half of them but you know what I mean don’t you?”

“Yes, Miss, I know what you mean.” The operator said. “There should be two officers arriving at your location in a few minutes. Do you need me to stay on the line or not?”

“No, no, I’m good.” Izareal swallowed audibly and hiked herself up on the wall. “I-I’ll just sit on this wall and wait.”

She hung up and breathed a sigh of relief as she shook off the shock that she’d wrapped around herself like a cloak. She hated acting like a vapid college girl but sometimes the pretence was useful and trying to get a 911 operator to believe you when you sounded perfectly calm was an endeavor that she’d seen the futility of when she’d tried it the first couple of times. Then again that had been when the emergency line had been in its infancy.

The cops showed up barely ten minutes later and Izareal stood up from the wall once she caught sight of them, yelling and waving her arms to get their attention. They made their way over at a reasonable pace and looked over the wall at the two bodies lying in the dirt behind her.

The younger one went vaguely green and took a few steps back before rushing over to a wild rose bush to be sick. The older officer just shook his head and clicked his radio to call in the murder unit from the next town over.

“Miss, it would probably be best if we take you in to get your statement.” The older officer said. “I’m Officer Davis, and Mr Iron Stomach over there is Officer Franklin.”

Izareal gave a little choked off laugh and fluttered her hands a bit around her chest. “Alright, let me just call my boyfriend, unless I’m under arrest?”

“No, Ma’am, they’ve been dead for a while by the looks and it’s not your fault that you found them.” Officer Davis said.

Izareal nodded vigorously and pulled out her phone, grateful that she and Sam had had the sense to exchange numbers in case they got separated. She pulled his number up and hit dial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Adam is alive and no it's not exactly relevant to this story, though it will be relevant in the eventual sequel.


	4. Chapter 3: What the Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam goes to pick Izareal up fromt he police station and Izareal continues to bemoan her life choices.

Sam rushed into the precinct with his best “concerned boyfriend” look plastered right across his face. He didn’t use it often, not anymore, he’d had to use it a few times when Jess had taken exception to one fratboy or other, even before they’d been dating.

“Z! Z, are you alright?” He called out as he caught sight of the blonde woman sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that seemed to be a universal constant of most small town precincts.

Z burst into tears and rushed to meet him in the middle of the reception area, wrapping her arms around Sam’s waist and clinging to him like he was a life line. Sam wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her into his chest, stroking a hand over her ponytail as she sobbed into his shirt. Real concern started welling up in his chest as he looked at the young officer who had been sitting with her.

“What happened?” The question was genuine because Z didn’t really seem the type to randomly burst into tears out of nowhere.

“She found two missing persons this morning, one of them wasn’t in particularly good shape. She’s been mostly calm this entire time, my partner thinks she might have been in a bit of shock from the experience,” the officer who’d been sitting with her said.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Sam sighed and bent down to kiss the top of her head, praying that this would not get weird for them later. “It’s all right. Does she have to stay any longer? We were supposed to get to her parent’s house yesterday but we got a flat tire a few towns back and had to stop here for the night.”

“No, no, we have her statement and she’s not actually a witness so you can go now if you want.” The officer looked at Sam like he was holding a bomb.

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he’d never understood the way most men got when there was a crying woman in front of them. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been the one to deal with victims of hunts when he was younger, while Dad and Dean dealt with the monster, or maybe it was the fact that most of his highschool friends had been girls but Sam had always had the urge to comfort rather than run.

Heck, maybe he picked it up from Dean, Dean had always been good with women and other people’s emotions for all that he ignored his own as much as possible. He certainly hadn’t picked it up from Dad, who’d given him the sex talk at sixteen - a converstion that only lasted the amount of time it took to say ‘use a condom’ - long after Dean had already explained the basics.

“Are the bodies going to be able to be identified?” Sam asked because even when he’d been a civilian morbid curiosity was a prominent part of his personality.

That was part of the reason why Sam was so much better at research than Dean. Although there had been a lot of regret over the years while looking up some of the things he’d heard about in passing. Monsters made sense but humans were so fucked up sometimes that it made Sam sick.

“One of the victims torn up pretty badly, but the one who can be has someone making his way over to the morgue now.” The officer didn’t even glance up from where he was looking at Z like she was a particularly venomous snake.

“That would explain it,.” Sam started lying through his teeth because that had almost never failed him. “She found a mountain lion’s kill when she was younger, it was pretty bad from what she’s told me. Can’t even watch cop shows.”

The officer nodded and relaxed slightly. Sam put one hand on Z’s back and started steering her out of his arms and towards the door of the precinct. He made soothing sounds as he pushed the door open to usher her through, letting in a kid who couldn’t have been older than twenty five in behind them.

Getting Z into the impala was easy, far easier than getting a drunk or injured Dean into the impala which was where Sam’s difficulty bar was set. Though the one time he and Dean had had to get their dad into the backseat after a hunt because he was knocked out cold and bleeding from a leg wound had been his worst experience involving the impala.

Sam pulled away from the curb with Z sobbing into his shoulder until they got a block away. Then she sat up and visibly started to pull herself together, rubbing at the tear tracks on her face and snorting to try clearing her nose.

“Fuck, I fucking hate,” Z sobbed again, a great heaving thing that drew in more breath than she should need, “doing that. Once I start I can’t fucking stop!”

“You good?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, otherwise fine.” She shook her head violently. “Oh, gods it’s been a while since I’ve done that.”

She’d mostly stopped crying at that point, it was the abruptest halt to a crying jag Sam had ever seen and he was mildly impressed. The addition of an invocation of multiple gods pinged at him though, stirring something deep in his hind brain.

“Gods, you don’t mean pagans do you?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, God, capital g, creator of all might be a dick but pagans are mostly alright, the ones who still get worshiped or are ingrained in culture anyway. The ones that eat people are just dicks but pagans will still come to the aid of those that follow them are alright.” Z waved one hand around as she scrubbed at her eyes with the bottom of her shirt.

“You’ve met some?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, some Norse, a Voodoo deity or two, most death gods are fine, they just get sustained by existing.” The blonde blinked the remaining tears out of her eyes before looking around at where they were going. “We going back to the motel?”

“Yeah, we should probably move a town or two over before looking into a new case, unless you have a different idea.” Sam hit the blinker.

“No, that works, we might want to go a bit further though, there aren’t any cases in the local area, this and the demons were the last ones I’d found. So, state or two over? There’s this brilliant little mom and pop motel I saved from a ghost a few years back, they saw it and now they have a free room open for me and contact me when a new hunt pops up.” Z asked.

“That would be a good idea.” Sam blinked and processed the second half of the sentence. “Wait, they saw you kill a ghost and didn’t report you to the cops?”

“I was pretty open about what was going on, then again, their daughter had already figured it out so it wasn’t all that much of a shock.”

*****

What the fuck was Izareal doing?

No seriously, what the ever loving fuck did she think that she was doing? She shouldn’t be doing this, she really shouldn’t be doing this.

Sam was bright and warm and caring and reminded her of Lucifer before he fell but he was also human and breakable and the apocalypse was starting in less than a year if the echo of the New Channels that rang over the Old Channels was to be believed.

Of course there was all the singing about preventing it but they’d only just realized that Dean Winchester was in Hell, which had to be intentional because Izareal had felt it when he had made the deal. Izareal had felt it when he’d been torn to bits too and she’d had to pull over to vomit all over the side of the road when that happened.

Izareal tried to concentrate on the road and not on the sleek black car behind her and the bright soul trapped inside its shell. She was so screwed, even more screwed than she’d thought she’d been when Uriel had come after her three days ago and hadn’t that stung.

She might not remember Uriel from before but his grace was a familiar mix of barely masked disdain and disgust for humanity, chained only by the need to obey, shackled to an ideal of perfection that she and others like her had shrugged off when Lucifer had treated her better than God ever had. She’d had to pull power out of her grace that she hadn’t even known was there anymore to escape.

If she’d been even a millisecond off in her timing she would be dead right now. Dead by a brother’s hand at that, something she’d managed to avoid in the War for fuck sake.

Uriel had been spouting off about ending humanity and joining Lucifer and burning the earth to the ground. She hadn’t been buying any of it and shot him down and that had been when he’d attacked her.

Fighting someone when you didn’t actually want to kill them but they wanted to kill you was a trial in and of itself. It had sucked, it had sucked so fucking hard that Izareal almost hadn’t noticed Sam when she’d been fleeing for her life.

Izareal didn’t want to kill her brothers, she loved them, loved them far more than should be physically possible. She’d lost a wing for one after all and even if that brother was locked in Hell, chained in a Cage in the bottom of a Pit where starlight never reached, twisted into a version of himself that she barely recognized he was still her brother.

And Uriel was still her brother, still her brother even though he had stood before her spouting blasphemy, blade drawn to strike her down.

Most angels would have had no other defence but to pull their own blade, to charge into a fight and try to survive while the other was trying their best to kill them.

But Izareal was a star maker, a weaver of gas and flame. She had learned under Lucifer and he had shown her how to harness that power, how to master that gas and spin it into flame. Light it and ignite it in a rush of heat and radiation so strong that it would obliterate any mortal being foolish enough to step near it.

And hers was the second brightest star system in the Bootes constellation, a binary star, always difficult to make because it was such a delicate balance of gravitational fields.

Izareal had gathered gas in her palm as he’d talked, let it pool there like rain in a flower. She might not have been able to make a star on earth, there was too much risk to it, too many chances of it going wrong, of radiation slipping out through her finger tips and damaging the life around her but that didn’t make her defenseless.

When he’d waved his hand violently, angel blade slashing through the air in a mimicry of a combat strike she’d seen many an angel perform, targeted right at another angel’s center of mass, meant to wrend the epicenter of their grace in two she’d snapped her fingers. Fire had formed in her hands, a mockery of a star that would only last a handful of moments at most and she’d hurled it at him.

Stars were out of the question but fire was an element that she’d worked with since the beginning, since before the Fall, before Lucifer, when she was Nameless and one of thousands. Fire had always come to her most naturally, had always sat up and paid attention when she called.

Uriel’s vessel had exploded into a ball of flame faster than he could save it and she’d thrown celestial fire besides so it wouldn’t have helped in the first place. She’d only stayed around long enough to confirm that the vessel was actually dead and that Uriel would need to find a new one before she’d bolted.

Uriel had only found her by chance, she’d learned how to hide herself after Ariel’s… reintegration into the Host and no one had seen her for longer than in passing since but a stopped clock was still right twice a day and if she stuck around Sam….

Oh, who was she kidding, she was going to stay with Sam no matter what. He needed someone right now, someone stable, someone to give him an oar to hold onto while he struggled to stay above water. Someone who wasn’t a demon with ties so close to Lilith that she bore her brand on her forehead rather than the back of her hand.

Ruby was so lucky that Sam didn’t have the eyes that Izareal did or she would have been slaughtered instantly. Not just for the Lilith brand either, Ruby had done some pretty dark shit in her lifetime and it hadn’t stopped with her death. Demons in general were nasty fuckers but there was a whole spectrum of bad shit and Ruby had been on the darker end of it.

Izareal was no saint, she couldn’t be one and even if she had been human she would have never been called to be one but there were still lines that she would not cross even if her life depended on it. Ruby had no such compunction from what she’d seen.

Sam needed someone, needed her, and who was she to deny him the comfort of another being’s presence. Especially when his soul so resembled the grace of her brother. Izareal had never been able to tell Lucifer no, not that he’d ever asked her to do something that she didn’t want to do.

That was why he was so dangerous.

He never asked you to do anything you didn’t want to do and then he looked at you with kind eyes that told you it was alright to do it. Then he’d ask for something more and then something else until you were all turned around and couldn’t see straight anymore and all you wanted to do was please him.

Lucifer didn’t normally take it that far, didn’t actually know that he could do it. From what Izareal had seen of him it was an unconscious thing, even after his Fall. But there were other star weavers who hadn’t wanted to fight, who hadn’t wanted to kill but had followed Lucifer anyway, walking down that path of silver knives hand in hand to their own inevitable destruction.

Michael ruled through power, force, intimidation that came so naturally that no one even questioned whether or not they should bend the knee to him. Rapheal ruled through cutthroat kindness, maintaining the order of the medical wing with an iron fist. Gabriel had never truly ruled, he was the messenger, the outlier but when he was in command it was all bumped shoulders and light hearted jokes, tugged feathers and ruffled hair.

But Lucifer, Lucifer had ruled through love, painful, blinding love that consumed all that it touched.

What Izareal wouldn’t give for a handful of seconds in his presence. His true presence, not the cold mockery of what he had become when God had stepped over that last line and raised flawed, mortal souls above his brothers and sisters.

And here he was, or a reflection of him, a copy that had been worn down by life and the darkness of the world. Azazel had tried to taint him, Ruby had tried to trick him, Hell had tried to break him but here he was, still standing strong against it all.

How could she  _ not _ help? How could she  _ not _ try and save him? How could she  _ not  _ be a port in the storm that would swamp his life raft if she left him out in the open ocean?

All she needed to keep him alive and off of demon blood, away from manipulation until Heaven pulled Dean from Hell and then he would be fine. Then he wouldn’t need her, he would have his brother again and she could focus on stopping the Apocalypse that was barreling towards them at full speed.

Hopefully, she didn’t get too attached.

And didn’t those just feel like famous last words.


	5. Chapter 4: On the Wings of an Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tries to puzzle out what flavor of supernatural Izareal is and then has it shoved directly into his face.

It had been a little over two months since Sam had met Z and at this point he was pretty sure she wasn’t human. He had no clue what she actually was but she wasn’t hurting anything besides whatever monsters they came across on a day to day basis and the handful of bar flies who thought it was a good idea to smack her on the ass.

He could leave well enough alone, let the mystery of her species slip into the background and wait until she was comfortable about sharing to find out. Sam could do that, he could be patient. He wasn’t a particularly patient person by nature but it was a skill he’d had to learn over the years.

But the mystery kept niggling at him, like a loose tooth, and he couldn’t stop himself from poking at the puzzle pieces that made up Z’s personality anytime he got a quiet moment alone. She was mostly careful about making herself look and act human but there were a few things that were just that little bit off, that most people wouldn’t notice but a hunter did.

For one, she didn’t eat enough. She ate, she ate pretty much every time Sam did and the times she didn’t it was because she was passed out on her motel bed, favoring sleepover food. However, she didn’t eat nearly enough for a hunter, even a female hunter of her height and she wasn’t skinny in a way that would indicate she was eating less than she should. Z was muscular and active with just the slightest hint of extra fat on her stomach and in her thighs, she really should be eating more than she was.

For another, her duffle and saddle bags were definitely bigger on the inside than they were on the outside. She had a lot of shirts, a lot, as in enough to cloth three teenage girls for two weeks and there was no way that she was fitting that much cotton into her relatively small duffle bag. And there was the everlasting ammo that she just seemed to pull out of her saddle bags.

Thirdly, there was the fact that if Sam was the one to enter the motel room first and get their stuff situated it would be the exact same quality as every other motel room he’d stayed in over the years but if Z was the one to do it then it would be a notch or two above standard. Not enough to be suspicious but just enough that it would be a once in a blue moon score for him and Dean.

All the singing Z did pointed towards siren but that was the only real sign she showed of that species, she didn’t have sex which was probably a good idea given some of towns they’d rolled into. The magical tardis bags pointed towards witch or some other magical practitioner but magic users tended to burn a lot more energy than normal humans, not less.

She had the Sight but had too many other powers to only be a Seer. People seemed to be drawn to her but not any more attention than most beautiful women garnered.

Z was stronger than human normal but that wasn’t actually all that helpful because nearly every creature that Sam had hunted over the years was stronger than human normal. He didn’t know if she was faster but it would make sense for her to be and her senses, the normal ones, not her Sight, seemed to be pretty in line with his own though that would be an easy thing to hide.

It was infuriating that with all his varying expertise on creature lore and experience with the supernatural he still couldn’t identify something that had been sleeping in the next bed over for the past two months and change.

Sam sighed and set aside the newspaper he’d been skimming. They were on a ghost hunt this week, they’d gone on quite a few ghost hunts actually, along with one wendigo and a nest of pixies which were nowhere near as friendly as Disney tried to make them out to be.

He had gone to the local library to look through newspapers for the death of a teenager who had come back to kill three members of the football team and two couches. Z was back in the room they’d taken up residence in for the week packing rock salt rounds. Or, at least, that was what she’d said she was doing and Sam had no doubt he’d come back to several dozen, neatly packed rocksalt rounds but the magical tardis saddle bags were still niggling at him.

Sam pulled the next paper over to him and flipped it open. There she was, halfway down the page, fourteen year old Caroline Grant, found brutally beaten and murdered in the middle of the middle school baseball diamond.

Further research into Caroline Grant produced a yearbook with both of the dead couches featured prominently as the captain of the football team and his best friend. Sam had a sneaking suspicion he knew why the ghost had gone after the three kids along with the couches when he turned to page to see Caroline in full cheerleading gear riding along on the football captain’s shoulders.

Sam hated it when ghosts were killing because it was personal. He’d come across a few over the years and while there were hunts with more gore and higher death counts he could never get over how focused and specific ghosts with a vendetta were. It was partially because with most ghosts you couldn’t really see the breaking point, they were just angry and wanted to take that anger out on others, with ghosts that got personal you could see exactly where the fault line that cracked them was.

The brunette blew out a breath and rubbed a hand down his face, at least Caroline wasn’t a little kid. Children who became ghosts were the worst kind and creepy as hell. Even the two children who’d stopped the woman in white back when Dean had first shown up again were creepy and they had been relatively benign.

Sam checked his watch and cursed under his breath, it was ten minutes past when he’d said he’d be back from the library with lunch. Z might not eat enough but she got just a touch pissy when she skipped a meal and when Z was pissy things started going wrong around the motel room.

Which brought Sam back around to the fact that Z clearly wasn’t human and he had no fucking clue what she was. There were a lot of carporial monsters that fit in with some but not all of the magical traits that she had. At least he knew she wasn’t a vampire, zombie, wendigo, or werewolf but that didn’t exactly narrow down the list.

Sam started packing up the newspapers and the handful of books on the history of the town. He grimaced a bit at the old leather bound hard cover that he’d stashed at the bottom of the stack, it was in latin and it had been a bitch to translate some of the passages but it was one of the only accurate encyclopedias of monsters Sam knew. He’d been a bit surprised about that but they were in a college town after all and the theology and mythology department at the college was rather robust according to the locals.

He’d been absentmindedly flicking through it when he’d needed a break from how utterly dull the town’s history had been. They hadn’t known what era the ghost had come from when they’d started researching, just that it was a teenaged girl, or it wouldn’t have taken so long for Sam to find her.

Sam put everything away and walked out of the door, texting as he walked towards the impala. He’d stop by the little candy shop at the center of town and grab something sweet, Z liked dark chocolate with spices mixed in for some unknown reason and the shop advertised spiced chocolate turtles.

*****

Izareal knew that she’d waited for over two months to get enough privacy to clean her wings, wing really. She should be cleaning and straightening them every week at the least and preferably every other day but she hadn’t wanted to risk exposing her species to Sam.

She’d waited too long to clean her wing, to straighten the feathers and pluck out all of the dead growth. They were starting to itch, to ache, to hurt in one of the most excruciating ways.

Izareal had waited until Sam was out, waited until he was going to be gone for a while, and then she pulled her wings, what was left of them, into  _ this _ plane of existence. The right one was fine, mostly fine, the tip was bent a bit, the result of a break that had healed ever so slightly off but the left…

The left was severed near the base, leaving only a six inch section of bone and skin and down jutting out from her back. It was healed now but she remembered what it had felt like when the wound was still fresh, still bleeding, still gushing grace like a hole in the bottom of a flask.

She started straightening out the feathers on the left one first because it was smaller and she could do it faster and if she got it over with she could focus on her right, pretend that she was whole again, that she could fly again…

Was back in Heaven, Lucifer shining brightly and smiling down as she crafted stars for him. Always for him, never for God, never for the uncaring, unfeeling being that had created her, that had named her binary star first and then her after it.

She spent over an hour on her right wing, carefully combing her fingers through the sections to pick out dead down and loose feathers. It was a bit like meditating and she fell into the motions like she was in a trance.

Stroke. Stroke. Tug. Pull up a section to get at some of the dirt hiding between the shafts. Straighten covet. Pull a dead, broken feather out from the underside of her wing.

Izareal didn’t hear her phone chime with the text message from Sam and she didn’t hear him when he came in either, not until the thump of a food bag hitting the floor. She turned around, wing arching high in a defencive posture and Sam was on his knees.

Sam was on his knees and he was staring at her like she was the center of the universe and she couldn’t stand that. Couldn’t stare at the awe and disbelief in his eyes, not when she could see the shadow of Lucifer in his soul.

“Oh, Z.” He breathed into the dead air between them and she abruptly pushed her wings back into the plane where she’d kept them hidden.

“You didn’t see that.” Izareal barked like it would change the reality of the situation and turned away from Sam to hide her face.

“Z, why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asked.

“Because you didn’t need to know, because no one needs to know. It’s fine, they’re fine, I’m fine.” Izareal stood up in one fluid motion. “Now, what did you bring for lunch?”

Sam dropped the subject and picked up the bags he’d dropped. He left the subject alone for the rest of the hunt but at the end, after the ghost had been salted and burned, after it had thrown Sam into a tombstone and caused a hairline fracture in his collar bone they climbed into the impala. Sam cleared his throat and Izareal buried her head in her hands in exasperation.

“Can’t you just leave it?” She dragged her hands down her face and looked at him.

“Z, you have wings. You tell me if you think I should leave it.” Sam pulled away from the curb. “What are you? I know what you look like but it’s a bit far fetched.”

Izareal took a deep breath and reached out to lay her hand on Sam’s shoulder, sending a pulse of grace into the touch in order to heal his collarbone. “My full name is Izareal and what your suspecting I am is probably correct.”

Sam blew out a long breath. “You’re an angel, an honest to God angel.”

“Fallen angel, technically, though I didn’t Fall with the Legion.” Izareal corrected off hand.

“Is that why you only have one wing, they took it from you when you Fell?” Sam asked.

Izareal started fiddling with her sleeve. “It’s the other way around, I took a blade meant for one of my brothers and when the wing was severed I Fell. I can’t fly anymore so tough luck.”

“And it won’t grow back?”

“No, it’s been at least four thousand years since I landed on Earth and in that time my wings have never changed.” She said.

“Wouldn’t He have fixed it if you weren’t meant to Fall?” Izareal snorted at Sam’s naive question.

“I was no one important, just another Star Weaver and most of my brethren followed Lucifer down. What was one more angel in the grand scheme of things? Besides, I wasn’t welcome in Heaven even before my wing was severed.” She told him.

“Why?” The little furrow between Sam’s brows and the confused puppy look he got were too adorable for words.

“My name means Star of God, Sam. And almost all of the other Star Weavers had already followed Lucifer down into the Pit. What do you think they thought? I’m pretty sure most of them assumed it was only a matter of time before I Fell too and took every secret I’d learned with me. They kept their distance for good reason.” Izareal tried to quell the growing fury on Sam’s face as his eyes narrowed.

“Those are stupid reasons.” Sam grumbled.

“No, they’re not. I was never a very pro God angel, none of the Star Weavers were. Lucifer picked us for our jobs, not God, most of us never even saw God more than twice. How can you have faith in someone who’s supposed to be your father but doesn’t even try to give you the time of day,” she tried to explain. “I didn’t hate the human souls that God had made, I liked them, liked their capacity for change but I can’t count the number of angels that Fell because Lucifer asked them to follow him rather than because they believed in what he said.”

There was silent in the car for a handful of moments as Sam mulled that over. Izareal waited for him to realize the logic behind what she was saying. They pulled into the parking lot of the motel and Sam shut off the engine before turning to look at her.

“You know it doesn’t matter to me what you are right? But I have to know, why me?” Sam asked.

Izareal blinked at him in confusion because how could he not see. She knew he couldn’t sense it, he didn’t have any form of Sight from what she’d been able to discern but he had a brain and a firm grasp on theology from what she’d been able to tell.

“You’re… very bright.” Was what she settled on before beginning to elaborate. “I can see souls, it’s part of what I am and while you’re not untouched by life or completely innocent you still shine, like a fire in the dark of the woods. You’re a good person and a hunter and your brother just died, I figured you needed someone and I was a better choice than that demon who’d been following you around like a lost puppy.”

Sam blinked at her for a few minutes before a small, shy smile broke out across his face. Izareal felt her face soften as she smiled back at him, the warmth of his soul radiating at her like a miniature sun.

She’d definitely made the right choice in joining him, now she just needed to figure out how to tell him about the impending Apocalypse. That wasn’t going to be awkward at all.


	6. Chapter 5: The Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean returns to the land of the living.

It was dark.

It was dark and hot but Dean didn’t hurt and that was strange.

Dean blinked at the darkness and shifted around, elbow connecting solidly with something. He winced and hissed under his breath as a dull ache shot up his arm. It was nothing like the pain inflicted on him in Hell but it was still pain and there had been far too much of that over the past years.

Dean swallowed heavily and began exploring the confines of where he was, trying to remember what had happened. He remembered… he remembered being torn apart by the hounds while Lilith looked on and Sam screamed, he remembered Hell and it was a blur of noise and heat and pain, there was a gap of memories where Dean knew something had happened but he couldn’t quite place what it had been, and then there was the light.

The light had been bright, blindingly so, like taking a blindfold off and staring directly at the sun. It had been warm too and it had burned as it had pulled him away from the wrack.

Dean’s fingers found wood surrounding him on all sides and he realized with a start that he was in a coffin. He shouldn’t be in a coffin, in fact his body shouldn’t still be intact, Sam and Bobby should have burned it to a crisp after he died.

Obviously that hadn’t happened, Dean was going to kill Sam when he found him. Hadn’t the idiot realized that demons were an awful source of miracles after Dean’s fiasco.

Dean banged on the lid of his coffin and dirt fell through the gaps in the wood. Oh great, this was going to be a whole new level of fun.

As it turned out, crawling your way out of your own grave sucked. It was hard work and you got far too much dirt in your mouth but the first gulp of air he took was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

Dean sat on his knees in the dirt for a few minutes, just breathing and feeling the sun beat down on the back of his neck. He was alive, he was alive and he wasn’t in hell and had just crawled his way out of his own grave.

He swallowed past his parched throat and glanced around him. He’d been buried in what had been a forest clearing but every tree that had been surrounding him had been knocked over by some unknown force.

Dean would have whistled but his mouth was too dry, tongue feeling like a lead weight in his mouth. The sun beat down, so bright that it hurt his eyes when he tried to raise his gaze over a certain height. His knuckles hurt from cracking the wood of his coffin and his arms burned with the effort it had taken to drag himself out of the ground. His stomach was roiling in nausea but completely empty at the same time.

Dean groaned and hauled himself to his feet, he need food, water, and shelter. That was the priority right now, survival after climbing out of his own god damned grave, the grave he was going to be putting Lilith in if he had anything to say about it.

How long had he been gone? Hell time had been more fluid than the time on Earth had been, sometimes faster and sometimes dragging along behind him like a lead weight. It had felt like thirty years in the Pit but there was still that nebulous time that he couldn’t quite remember.

There was a road in the distance, he could see it through the few trees that were still standing. It wasn’t quite what he’d been aiming for but it was a start, at least if he traveled along that he wouldn’t have to worry about tripping over anything and roads typically meant civilization, even if that civilization was miles and miles away.

*****

Izareal lay sprawled out across Bobby Singer’s couch trying to get comfortable, she and Sam had gotten to the older man’s house at around three in the morning, beaten up and bloody. Werewolves were her new least favorite monster to have to deal with, a decision that Sam agreed with wholeheartedly, though he hadn’t explained why he agreed.

Before now her least favorite monster had been wendigos because those bastards were hard to kill and fast and could mimic voices. The first wendigo she’d come across had been when the Vikings discovered America and the bastard had sounded like one of her younger siblings in pain.

But werewolves were the new top of the list, purely because of how difficult the latest one was to find and kill and how young his victims were. When they’d discovered that the first body that dropped had turned out to be a sixteen year old girl and she was the oldest victim Sam had vomited into a nearby bush.

The sun had risen hours ago and Bobby was puttering around the kitchen making lunch. The smell would hopefully rouse Sam from the coma like sleep he’d fallen into around dawn, after a hot shower that must have been heavenly after the night they’d had.

“Are you going to get up anytime soon?” Bobby poked his head into the living room to look at her.

Izareal’s lips quirked and she sat up in one smooth motion, hooking her legs over the arm of the couch so that she ended up perched there. “I’m used to replicating humans as closely as possible and Sam’s still dead to the world.”

“Yeah, well you’ve been staring at the ceiling for the past two hours, stop being a creepy idjit and come help me make lunch.” Bobby’s eyebrow quirked as she laughed at him.

Izareal sat forward to slide off of the arm of the couch and let her feet thump against the floor. It was a satisfying sound and Izareal hated being quiet, most of heaven had been quiet, it was quiet when she was created and for a time after until Lucifer had picked her to be a Star Weaver. Then there had been new noises that she’d never heard before.

Lucifer was the angel of music as well as the Morning Star and he was always humming something under his breath if he wasn’t talking or singing outright. His voice had been beautiful, the most beautiful in all of the Host but he’d once told her that her voice had come close to matching his.

Even now, after millenia of living on Earth she still wasn’t used to the silence and when it got too much for her she couldn’t help singing or humming just to have some sort of noise. When she’d heard a choir, a human choir sing and produce what musical theorists would later call the god note she cried because it sounded so much like another angel’s voice but it wasn’t even close at the same time.

Izareal hummed as she trotted into the kitchen, peeking into the fridge to look for the eggs she knew had to be in there. Sam needed protein after last night, he’d done a lot of running and had clearly been sore even though he hadn’t really mentioned it. She might be able to take him out on a demon hunt soon without him flipping out, it might even be therapeutic.

She still needed to bring up his powers though because, while it was a touchy subject, he needed every advantage available to him if they were going to take out Lilith before 65 of the seals were broken. That was the solution she’d come up with after a lot of thinking over the past few weeks and it was probably the only one that would work.

“What are you making?” Izareal asked as she pulled the carton out of the fridge.

“Beef stew, the idjit upstairs’ll be starving when he comes down and stew’s easy to make in bulk, plus I have some left over from last night.” Bobby grabbed a wooden spoon and started stirring the pot on the stove leisurely.

“I’m making a frittata then.” Izareal decided.

She hummed along to an old hymn as she worked, cracking eggs and stirring in scallions and a lot of cheese. She liked cheese, almost as much as Gabriel liked sugar but it just didn’t taste right if she went around miracling it up like Gabriel did with his oral fixations so she’d gone on a bit of a shopping spree earlier in the month when she learned that Sam actually had something resembling a home base.

Parmigiano Reggiano was the best, always had been and probably always would be but mozzarella and well aged bree came very close. Those two and cheddar were easier to melt down so she stirred them into the egg mixture she’d made.

“What is it with you and cheese?” Bobby asked.

“Cheese is awesome, the best invention your lot came up with since fire, and you get a lot of bang for your buck with it. It packs almost all of the proteins, minerals, and fat of milk into a more easily digested packet. And it can be preserved rather than going sour after a few hours in high heat.” Izareal told him.

“Fair enough.” Bobby acknowledged. “But why do you eat in the first place? You don’t need it?”

Izareal started hunting through the cabinets for a pan, she knew where they were, angels had long memories but ingrained habits were a thing and she hadn’t been in Bobby’s house often enough for her to remember where everything was if she’d been a human. After a few moments of rummaging she had collected a pan and her thoughts enough to answer him.

“A bit of it is habit, I needed to eat to blend in and while humans can’t do anything to kill me, I am a woman and in most eras and places that was not the best thing to be, especially in medieval europe. If I never have to see another nunnery full of woman terrified of their own shadows again it will be too soon. If I never have to see a woman hunted down because she’s carrying a baby that wasn’t her husbands it will be too soon. If I never have to be stoned for being a witch again it will be too soon.” Izareal told him.

“How many times did that happen?”

“Too many.” Izareal smiled sadly as she began to pour her eggs into the pan. “And there were girls who died because they didn’t have my power.”

And most of them had been girls, young, too young to marry, or already married without children. Stoning was an awful way to die and Izareal was almost certain that the only thing that topped it was burning. Neither could have killed her but they both hurt like nothing else physically.

Her wing topped it, but then again her wing topped everything.

There was a knock on the door and Izareal turned to peer through the wall at the soul standing at the front door. It was clean and bright and almost too new, like a child’s but there was a cloud around it, a fog that hung and seemed to be trying to choke it even as it rapidly vanished. Maybe it was a girl scout who’d been around someone nasty recently.

“That’s a human, is it girl scout cookie season or something?” Izareal asked.

Bobby grunted in amusement and made his way over to the door. “Girl scout cookie season was in February and it’s September right now, I don’t know who’d be coming to sell me something.”

The door opened and Bobby stopped breathing. Izareal turned in alarm and in a few quick steps she was standing right behind him. The man in the doorway was taller than Bobby but not as tall as Sam with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. He smelled like the grave, like freshly turned earth and open sky and he looked very familiar.

“Holy shit.” Izareal breathed, she’d known that the Righteous Man would be raised from Hell but she hadn’t known that the others were going to resurrect him.

“Surprise.” Dean Winchester said.

“I don’t-” Bobby started to say and then stopped mid sentence.

“Yeah, me neither.” Dean Winchester stepped into the house, looking around at the floor instead of meeting Bobby’s eyes. “But hear I am.”

“One sec, I’m gonna go grab Sam.” Izareal turned on one heel and bolted up the stairs.

“Who is that?” Dean asked from somewhere behind her but she didn’t particularly care where that conversation was going.

Izareal’s mind was spinning in confused little circles, trying to figure out why the angels had resurrected the poor after he’d earned his rest and why his soul looked nothing like Michael’s grace. Or, at least, nothing like the Michael she’d met, she’d never known him personally and Lucifer was living proof that angels could change. She was living proof that angels could change, so was Gabriel, so had Ariel.

Izareal burst into Sam’s room, startling the brunette who immediately turned towards her with his gun raised. He lowered it after realizing who she was and tucked it into the back of his jeans before pulling on a shirt.

“Where’s the fire?” Sam asked.

“Dean’s at the door.” Izareal said in a rush and Sam went very still.

“What did you say?” He asked.

“Dean’s at the door and I checked, he’s human, it’s him, not some shapeshifter or revenant and a demon’s not riding him.” Izareal slowed down a bit.

Sam sat down abruptly on his bed, staring at her in dumb founded amazement. She held back vaguely hysterical laughter because Sam’s dead brother was downstairs and he looked vaguely like a confused puppy.

“Who… How?” Sam looked up at her with wide, vulnerable eyes and she had to swallow as his soul started to brighten.

“I don’t know which of my brothers did it but one of them definitely did. Why they resurrected him rather than letting him rest I don’t know but he’s here now and I’m a bit freaked out about it.” Izareal babled at him.

Sam stood and Izareal barely moved out of the way fast enough to not get bowled over when he rushed through the door. He darted down the stairs, nearly tripping over his own feet as he went and startling a short giggle out of Izareal as she followed.

“Dean!” Sam called, voice bright and disbelieving.

“Sammy!” Dean called back and then grunted as Sam launched himself at his older brother.

Izareal smiled as she watched their souls interact at an instinctive level, Sam’s burrowing into Dean’s as Dean’s wrapped around Sam’s in a protective shield. It was a beautiful sight, a tender moment and far more intimate than anything physical ever could be. She shouldn’t be watching them, not at this moment when the two brothers were greeting each other after one had been dead for almost four months, forty years in Hell time.

Izareal turned to Bobby. “I think we’re going to need to make more food and find out which one of them resurrected him. We know it wasn’t Micheal but that leaves at least a couple thousand left.”

“I know someone who might be able to help.” Bobby turned to walk into the kitchen and Izareal turned back to the two brothers.

The two Winchesters had a bond deeper than flesh and blood, it was soul deep and while not the bright romanticism of a soul mate bond it was still powerful, protective, paternal even on Dean’s end. It had been a while since she’d seen a bond that deep, that true. They were rare, extremely so but they had one and if she had to leave soon, had to abandon them to their fate and go hunting Lilith on her own she was glad that she had a chance to see it in all its glory.


	7. Chapter 6: The Price of Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters go to Pamela to attempt to find out who Raised Dean.

There were many forms of sight in the world, be it foresight, insight or hindsight. But very, very few people had the ability to see an angel’s wings, Z was the only exception to that rule, her wing being tied to her physical form rather than her ethereal one.

It had taken a while for Sam to get that out of her. Z didn’t like talking about her wings or her siblings or anything related to Heaven, and Sam couldn’t really blame her for that. It was still hell on his curiosity though.

There had been a discussion about forms of sight in the middle of the night when Sam was shading towards mildly tipsy and Z was sipping at a bottle of apple flavored vodka. They’d been lying on a sheet in the grass under a starlit sky somewhere in the middle of Iowa.

“You might be able to see them.” Z had muzed, swirling her bottle.

“See what?” Sam had asked her.

“Wings, Azazael was a Fallen and angel blood is angel blood, no matter how tainted by the Pit.” Z had rolled over onto her stomach then and stretched her wing out over him like a blanket. “It would take a while to train your abilities but it might be an advantage.”

They hadn’t followed through with the idea, Sam had been uncomfortable with the idea of using the powers the demon who killed his mother had given him and Z hadn’t wanted to actually teach him about it, apparently the person she’d taught had been burned for witchcraft. That had been over four hundred years prior but the trauma was still fresh.

What she had done was explain how to flip the switch in his brain that would turn on his ability to see things that most people couldn’t. The first time he’d done it he’d vomited across the floor because looking at a demon’s face without any filter on a full stomach was not the best idea in the world. The demon had laughed for a good ten seconds before Z lost her temper and stabbed it in the face.

Pamela, Bobby’s friend and a psychic of some skill, had tilted her head to one side in mild amusement when Z came walking through her door but hadn’t been able to see the wings. Now they were all sitting around the seance table except for Z, who had leaned against the wall behind the psychic.

“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle.” Pamela’s voice shifted from her playful tone into something a hair more than human.

Sam couldn’t feel anything besides the warmth of his brother’s hands at first but as Pamela repeated the words once, twice, three times he could feel the power in the room build, a whine ringing in his ears almost too high pitched for him to hear. There was a heat to the air that hadn’t been there before, a warmth that was almost too much hovering in the back of his brain as the tv in the corner flicked on to show only static.

Z moved, standing from her lean and walking forwards a few steps, wing up and poised to intervene, shimmering just out of sight of the physical plane. Her face had pulled into a tight, worried scowl as she leaned forward.

“I invoke, conjure, and command you-” Pamela paused for half a second, “Castiel.”

Z cursed in a language that Sam only vaguely recognized as Enochian.

“No, sorry, Castiel, I don’t scare easy.” Pamela gritted out.

“Castiel?” Dean asked.

“Its name, it’s whispering to me, warning me to turn back.”

“We have their name, let go of the spell.” Z barked, voice short and sharp with command.

“No, I can do this. I conjure and command you, show me your face.” Pamela called.

“Oh you stupid little-”

“I conjure and command you show me your face.”

The table started to shake.

“Pam, maybe we should-”

“No, I’ve almost got it.” Pamela reprimanded.

Z pulled her wing onto the physical plane in a rush of fluttering feathers as Pamela spoke.

“Show me your face! Show me your face NOW!”

Three things happened all at once. One, the candles on the table flared, flames reaching towards the ceiling as the energy in the room spiked. Two, Z swept her wing in front of Pamela like a shield, star shine feathers glowing with power and grace. And, three, every single piece of electronic equipment in the house exploded.

Then everything stopped and there was a ringing silence broken only by the sound of the psychic panting. The three men sitting at the table looked at each other in shock as Z pulled her wing back from Pamela’s face.

“That,” Z said after a brief pause to fold her wing back to its normal station along her spine, “was, quite possibly, the stupidest thing I have ever seen a human attempt to do.”

“I almost had it.” Pamela protested.

“No, you didn’t, you almost blinded yourself, my siblings don’t appear in their true form for good reason and even with the filter of the mortal plane you would have been blinded, I don’t even want to know what would have happened if you had been looking at them without it. They might have melted your brain.”

And with that the conversation was over. Z herded the three men out of the house, hand shaking where it was pressed against Sam’s back.

*****

“Are we sure she gave you the right spell?” Dean asked.

“Z’s advice hasn’t failed me yet.” Sam flipped the page in his book.

“Yeah, but she’s not human is she? This is her brother. How do you know that we can trust her?” Dean could feel the concern seeping into his voice.

Sam glanced up at him and Dean rolled his eyes at the bitch face his brother was shooting him. It was a perfectly reasonable question. Izareal wasn’t human and she claimed one of her brothers, this Castiel, had dragged Dean out of Hell which meant that whatever she was was incredibly powerful. Sam had told him that she was an angel,  _ Bobby _ had told him she was an angel but Dean didn’t believe in angels even though he’d seen the wing himself.

“She saved me from a pack of demons, Dean.” Sam told him. “And we’ve been hunting together ever since. I’ve known her for over two and a half months, not once in that time has she done anything to hurt or manipulate me.”

“She still isn’t human, Sammy, I don’t know why you get so attached to the things we hunt but it’s going to destroy you one day.” Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“I’m not entirely human, Dean.” Sam’s words were almost too quiet for him to hear.

“What?” Dean’s head snapped around.

Sam bit his lip. “The blood, Dean, the blood Azazel fed me and all those other kids. It didn’t just enhance our powers, it changed us, that’s how I survived the croatoan virus.”

“But you're not getting dreams anymore, right?” Dean asked.

He hadn’t seen the dreams as anything evil, not like Dad would have but watching Sam lose himself to them hadn’t been pleasant. The fact that the other children seemed to be mostly evil hadn’t helped Sam’s state of mind either.

“No, but Z told me how to open up my sixth sense. I can see demons’ faces now, tell which graves hold ghosts, things like that. She said I might be able to do more if I ever wanted to try using them but I don’t want to and she didn’t push.” Sam admitted.

Dean blew out a breath. The powers weren’t evil, they came from Sammy and even if their originator was a demon Sammy wasn’t evil. Misguided and too trusting, yes but not evil.

“Alright,” Dean sighed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “Break this down for me. What have y’all been hunting?”

“It’s been a mix, mostly ghosts, there was a nest of vampires a few weeks back, and we took down a werewolf that was hunting highschool girls yesterday.” Sam shrugged. “Z’s disappeared for an hour or two to hunt demons by herself, she won’t let me anywhere near them.”

“Why?” Dean asked.

“I… got a bit obsessed… with Lilith.” Sam hesitated.

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “Sammy-”

The wind picked up and both brothers got to their feet, shifting towards each other. The shingles were banging against the wooden beams that held up the roof and Dean could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The lightbulb above Dean’s head popped and the other lights in the barn followed shortly after.

“I take it that it’s not just going to appear in the middle of the room.” Sam called over the wind and Dean chuckled.

The doors banged open, the bar holding them closed breaking down the center like it hadn’t even been whole to begin with. Dean cocked his gun, even knowing that it would do fuck all to hurt Izareal’s sibling he felt better with a round in the chamber.

A man walked through the empty space where the doors used to be, he was tall but not as tall as Dean with black hair. He wore a suit under a tan trench coat and what would have been sensible shoes if they were in an office. He carried no weapons but Dean knew not to trust that, what with Izareal’s tendency to pull her knife out of thin air.

As he drew nearer, Sam shifted closer to Dean, cocking his own gun and tensing up. The man stopped a few feet away from them, head cocked to one side in what looked like mild confusion.

“I take it you’re Castiel.” Dean said.

“Yes,” and wow, Castiel’s voice was deep, like gravel rubbing against stone, “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”

Sam snorted and Dean glared at him. Sam gave him an innocent look and made no further comment.

“What are you?” Dean asked. “There’s no way anything less than a high order demon dragged me out of the hot box and you just walked through every devils trap and demon ward we know.”

“I’m an Angel of the Lord.” Castiel said, like Dean should be impressed by the shiny angelness of his being.

“Some angel you are, you almost burned out that poor woman’s eyes.” Dean said.

“I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be… overwhelming to humans and so can my real voice. But someone stepped in, one of my brothers shielded her before she could get too far-”Castiel said.

“Sister.” Sam corrected.

Castiel blinked and turned to look at Sam, as if seeing him for the first time. “What?”

“Sister, not brother.” Sam repeated.

“My sibling is using a female vessel then.” Castiel nodded as if this explained everything.

“Vessel? You mean you’re wearing some poor sap?” Dean asked with rising horror.

“Yes, he is a devout man, he actually prayed for this.” Castiel said.

“What are you really?” Dean grit his teeth.

“Dean.” Sam sighed.

“I already told you.” Castiel looked confused.

“Right, and why would an angel,” besides Izareal but she’d admitted she couldn’t fly anymore to their faces, “rescue me from Hell?”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, “Good things do happen, Dean.”

“Not in my experience, not like this.” Dean said.

“What’s the matter?” Castiel asked and then realization dawned on his face. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

“Why’d you do it?” Dean asked again as Sam’s hand settled onto his shoulder, squeezing gently.

Castiel licked his lips and drew closer still. His eyes were blue, not sky or sea blue but something more saturated, more intense. Dean felt like he could get lost in those eyes if he wasn’t careful.

“Because God commanded it.” There was a pause as Castiel let that sink in. “Because we have work for you.”

“Get the order yourself then?” Dean asked.

“No, I am too inconsequential for God to talk to, my superiors gave the order and my garrison descended on Hell to free you. I was lucky enough to get through the defenses and find you.” Castiel explained.

Dean glanced over as Sam who looked vaguely like he wanted to start taking notes. Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the angel that hadn’t blinked since laying eyes on him. That was creepy, incredibly creepy in fact and Dean didn’t like the way that stare appeared to be peeling back the layers of his skin to look inside him.

“Then how do you know that the order came from God?” Dean asked.

“I have faith.”

“Yeah, well, faith is something that’s earned, not blindly given.”

“Deeeean.” Sam groaned again.

When Dean looked over at his brother Sam was wearing his ‘Oh my God, Dean, that’s not how that works, you know this, how do you not know this’ bitch face. Dean cracked a smile, seeing Sam’s bitch faces after so long was a relief in and of itself. Sam had gotten steadily quieter as Dean’s death day approached and while Dean didn’t remember much of what had happened in Hell he could still feel the time that had gone by weighing on his soul.

There was the sound of wet paper tearing and Dean whirled around to see Castiel gone. He cursed under his breath at the realization that the angel had taken the opertunity to fuck off.

“Well, you were asking him awkward questions.” Sam commented when he caught sight of Dean’s scowl.

“Shut up, Sammy.”


	8. Chapter 7: Time Goes Winding Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal gets confronted with one of her siblings and the fall out of Deans first travel through time.

There had never been many angels on Earth, not after the Garden. There’d only really been a handful or so of guardian angels sent to protect those significant to God’s plan, Gabriel, Ariel, and Izareal.

Everyone thought that Gabriel was dead, killed in the crossfire of the War but Izareal knew better. She’d seen him after all, when she’d Fallen from Heaven, wing falling after her, Raphael diving to catch her but being yanked back into those hallowed halls before he could reach her.

She’d crashed hard, it hadn’t hurt. Or, well, it might have but at that point she’d been in too much pain from the wing to notice. It had fallen on top of her and that had been the worst part, holding the severed section of her wing in her arms as she tried to stay quiet, tried not to scream, to sob, to cry out, tried to just lie there and die.

Gabriel had found her. It hadn’t taken him long.

He’d found her and he’d saved her, even though he wasn’t a healer, even though it had hurt him and her both to do it, even though if he had been anything less than an archangel it would have killed him.

He’d apologized.

He’d apologized repeatedly, over and over again as he’d cut away at bone and grace, trying to find the end of the wound, to find a place to choke off the bleed out.

Izareal was lucky she’d only lost one wing. It didn’t feel like she was and Gabriel certainly didn’t think so but she’d seen Grace wounds before, in the War, the War that Gabriel hadn’t been anywhere near because he had fled Heaven.

Izareal couldn’t blame him. Izareal couldn’t blame him because she had done the same thing. He could not watch his brothers fight and she could not watch her siblings die.

He’d made her a body. Or, well, pulled the physical aspects of her true form that she had settled on after seeing Lilith into the corporeal plane and gave them form. It hadn’t exactly been an easy process but after that she’d been on her way.

She’d never asked who or what he’d been hiding as, even though she could taste the pagan magic on him and she’d let him be after that. She’d see him occasionally but never too often and never for long and she always got the impression that he had been watching her for far longer than she’d seen him.

Izareal met other angels occasionally, most of them Guardian angels but they gave her a wide berth, what with the wing issue. It wasn’t like the injury was contagious but the image of an angel with only one wing made the others uncomfortable to say the least, especially considering how she’d lost it.

And then there had been Ariel. Izarael had been there when the Host had descended for her sister. When the Host had ripped apart Sparta searching for her. When they’d found her and dragged her back up into Heaven, kicking and screaming as she went.

She hadn’t even known that Ariel was on Earth before that moment.

Ariel wasn’t dead or at least, Izareal didn’t think she was dead. She was probably imprisoned like Gadreel, like every other angel that Heaven couldn’t condition back into a willing slave, into a state of oblivion.

It was… well, Izareal was glad she wasn’t in Heaven anymore even though she missed it so much, so fiercely that it ached deep in her grace where the scar from Michael’s sword lay.

After that there had been fewer and fewer angels on Earth and Izareal met them more and more infrequently. The largest gathering after Ariel in Sparta incident was when the Son of God was born and died and had his crusade to Hell.

And then they were all gone.

_ All _ of them, even the guardian angels.

It was… lonely. Even though Izareal hadn’t seen them often and they hadn’t initiated contact at all in the years since she’d Fallen she’d still seen them, sensed them, heard their voices on the edge of her hearing radius.

But she’d gotten used to it, it had taken years, centuries even, and one complete mental breakdown but she had gotten used to it, being alone.

Izareal had made friends with humans, pagans, even some vampires. It almost always ended in heartbreak but it had helped keep her sane. Which was why it was a bit of a shock to come back from a shopping trip to find an angel standing in the middle of Bobby’s kitchen.

Izareal froze in the doorway, hands tightening around the shopping bags in her hands. He was taller than she was and wore a blue eyed vessel with dark hair. His vessel's build was average and the soul inside seemed resigned to what was going on, if extremely uncomfortable with being stuffed next to a being as powerful as an angel.

His wings were dark, almost black to her eyes with a single patch of green feathers sitting high up in what would be the alula feathers on a bird. He was young too, younger than her and completely unfamiliar but he had an edge to his grace, a razor sheen that showed he’d been crafted for war. The animal faces sitting on either side of his humanoid one reflected that, a jaguar and a crowned eagle.

“Hello, brother.” She said.

His vessel’s head cocked to one side and his wings rippled out behind him, flapping gently before folding themselves against his spine. “Sister.”

“Why are you here? The angels haven’t been on earth for over a millenia. Has Father decided to sire another son?” Izareal forced her voice to stay even as she glided into the room on silent feet.

Her brother tracked her movements with his eyes as she opened the fridge and began putting away the groceries she’d bought. It was creepy, this one clearly hadn’t been out of Heaven with any frequency or at all and hadn’t learned any of the social cews that the guardian angels had out of necessity.

When a blade wasn’t immediately buried in her back she relaxed ever so slightly and began to humm under her breath. It was an old song and human in nature, an irish drinking song that she’d picked up a few centuries back and couldn’t get out of her head.

“You know exactly why I am here. You are consorting with the Righteous Man’s brother, you need to stop.” Her brother said.

“Do I?” Izareal kept her voice light.

“Yes, we do not know what your objective is but interference in God’s plans will not be tolerated.” And he actually sounded like he believed that, too, complete with wing flaring.

Izareal tried not to roll her eyes as she set down the milk and closed the fridge. “Look...”

“Castiel.” Her sibling said after it became clear that Izareal was asking for his name.

“Look, Castiel, I have been on Earth for a long time, possibly longer than you have existed and I have no designs on your mission. I don’t particularly care about it in truth, Heaven has never cared about what I do on Earth. I have not interfered with your charge directly and I have broken no laws warenting interference. I don’t know why you're stepping in now.” Izareal said.

“I saw your Fall.” Castiel said.

“Then you’re old enough to know that I didn’t fight in the War and that I Fell to make sure that one of my brothers didn’t pay the ultimate price.” Izareal stepped out so that she had more space to flee if it became necessary.

“You stepped in front of a blade meant for Lucifer, if you hadn’t intervened then all of this could have been-” Castiel drew his wings up into a defensive posture.

Izareal’s wing flared and she snarled at him. “And he would be dead! I have had enough of death to last a lifetime! He may have been in the wrong but I still loved him! I still love all of you even if you are all to blind to see it! I refuse to watch any of you die ever again!”

“Even if it means your own death?” Castiel asked.

“Yes.”

“Stay away from the Winchesters or you won’t have a choice.” And with that Castiel was gone with a flap of wings.

Izareal cursed under her breath and examined the grace trail that he’d left behind. It was slightly broader than most angels but it spoke of power and efficiency, like no one had taught him how to properly fly but he’d figured out how to do it anyway.

“And I’m not leaving until they make me.” Izareal ran a hand over her face and groaned.

She was going to die, there was absolutely no way that that wasn’t going to happen now that she knew that Heaven wanted her to leave the Winchester brothers alone. She wasn’t going to do that, she couldn’t at this point.

*****

“Are you alright?” A voice asked from behind Dean asked.

He turned slightly to look at the woman standing in the doorway and she was a woman, a person, not a creature. Izareal had proven that a few times over, what with the fact that she’d kept Sammy sane, off the war path, and put the Witnesses down almost as soon as they’d appeared. She was beautiful, gorgeous even but more in that way old art was beautiful, not in a way that made him want to have sex with her.

“No.” Dean wiped the water off his face.

“What happened?” Izareal looked concerned.

“Cas threw me into the past, told me I had to stop it.” The words tasted like bile in his mouth. “Then he told me that we needed to stop talking to you or they’d do something about it.”

Izareal rolled her eyes. “That’s not how time travel works, maybe if he was an archangel and he threw you into an alternate timeline but otherwise, no, there’s no way you could have stopped whatever Heaven wanted you to. Time is linear and once set it can’t be unmade without significant effort.”

“So that was pointless.” Dean growled and hit the side of the sink..

“What did you learn?” Izareal asked.

Dean blinked and looked her in the eye. “What?”

“It might not have been pointless, not in truth. You may not have been able to do what they wanted you to but it might not have been entirely pointless. Did you learn anything new in the past?” Izareal asked.

“Well, Mom was a hunter before she married Dad, came from a family of them and she made a deal to save Dad’s life. Shit, that’s how he got in.” Dean ran both hands through his hair and pulled.

“Azazel was always a tricky one, I don’t think Falling would have changed that. But more importantly, most angels know how time travel works and while I don’t think Castiel meant to hurt you I don’t think he has the full picture.” Izareal tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re being manipulated and he is as well.” Dean watched her nod. “Why do they want you gone?”

“I’m Fallen. I’m not a demon but I am Fallen and…” Izareal bit her lip. “I stepped in front of a blade meant for Lucifer, it’s how I lost my wing. I couldn’t watch another one of my brothers die, not after the fighting was already over. Maybe if I’d watched him die in the War I would have acted differently but I could not watch his execution. So, all of this is technically my fault.”

“No, it’s not.” Dean didn’t like the direction her words were going, it sounded too much like when Sammy got too maudlin and climbed his way into a bottle.

“Yes, it is. If I’d let him die then all of this wouldn’t be happening.” Izareal gestured at the world in general.

“No, you didn’t start the war in Heaven, you didn’t make Eve take a bite of the apple, you didn’t make Lucifer hate humanity. None of that is your fault and neither is the fact that Lucifer is still alive.”

Izareal made a face and turned around. She walked back out into the main part of the hotel room, Dean tracked her across the room until she flopped down onto the bed she’d been sharing with Sam. He didn’t think that there was any sort of romantic interest there, at least on Sam’s part, Izareal was harder to judge and, by his estimate, a bit skin starved, if angels could get skin starved.

“Did I tell you what my dad’s last words were?” Dean asked.

“No, and that seems a bit personal.”

“He told me that I’d either have to save Sam or kill him.” Dean watched as Izareal went very still, not even breathing anymore.

She looked like a statue made of flesh, sprawled across the bed like a piece of modern art in a museum. She had her wing hidden in whatever hammer space she kept it in but her hair was sprawled around her head like a halo and the utter stillness in her form had never made her look more like an angel.

Izareal sat up slowly, like one of those old vampire movies where Dracula rose from his coffin. “He told you to do what?”

“Sammy’s psychic and dad…” Dean blew out a breath. “Dad was very black and white, psychics got a bit of a pass on that but Sam’s powers were rooted in the demonic and the other kids who were picked by Azazel all went crazy eventually.”

“Angelic,” Izareal snapped. “Azazel was Fallen and all those kids went crazy because he fucked with their brains and then put them down in an arena to fight it out amongst themselves.”

“I didn’t care either way. I’ve never cared either way. I couldn’t hurt Sammy even if I wanted to, it goes against my nature. Hell, I gave up my soul to bring him back to life, I went to Hell for him,” Dean pointed out.

“Are you trying to draw parallels?” Realization bloomed across her face and her head tilted to one side, like Cas had done a few times. “Seriously? Between your brother and Lucifer? I don’t think that most humans would find that flattering by the by.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m drawing a parallel between the two of us. I couldn’t let Sammy stay dead and you couldn’t watch Michael kill your brother. Sammy said you were a star weaver, said that you and Luci were close.”

Izareal giggled. “Gabe calls him the same thing, I think you’d like him.”

“Yeah, well if we can keep your psychotic brother in his Cage then you can take us to go meet him.” Dean promised.

He wandered over to his bed and sorted through his bag. Izareal smiled at him as she stood and wandered into the kitchen.

“Where’s Sammy anyway?” Dean pulled out soap and a towel. He’d never understood how Sammy could stand to use motel room towels, then again Sam hadn’t had a traumatic experience with a roach motel and a rash that would not go away.

“Nightmare, he went for a run.” Izareal pulled open the fridge, made a face, and gestured.

“Miracled food?”

“At least I know the nutritional content and it isn’t covered in grease.”

“Fair enough. Don’t think I didn’t notice you change the subject.” Dean pointed at her.

“Leave it, Dean.” Izareal sighed, drawing her hair up into a high ponytail. “I’ve carried this for a long time, I can carry it a few months more.”


	9. Chapter 8: This is Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal murders a pair of witches with extreme prejudice.

Izareal had barely set foot in town before the wave of dark, festering magic hit her full in the face. She took a deep breathe to steady herself, pushing past the rot and festering filth to the underlying flavor of the person behind the power.

People, there were two of them, a woman and a man. The taste of their power was similar enough that they had to be either lovers or related. But more importantly she had felt this power before, but where? Where and when?

“Z?” Sam asked as Izareal’s head jerked to one side.

Oh, that’s where she’d felt them before. Salem, when she’d helped kick Samhain down back into the pit that he’d crawled his way out of. This was going to be a bitch to take care of.

Izareal threw her leg over her bike and revved the engine.

“Z, what’s going-”

Izareal took off without a backward glance, arrowing her way towards the source of the horrendous mix of magics. It got worse the closer she got to the brother and sister pair that had fought so hard against her the last time they had met, so desperate to keep their master safe.

She pulled to a stop outside an average looking suburban home. She almost laughed with the irony, the siblings residing inside the home were anything but average, if they were anything like they’d been last time at least. They could have mellowed with age, but the likelihood of that were almost zero.

Izareal got off the bike and walked up to the front door. The feeling of dark magic was coming from under the ground which meant there was a basement but she couldn’t hear any heart beats coming from inside the house or see any souls when she stretched her senses out to encompass the house.

Perfect.

Izareal pushed the door open and strode into the house, kicking it closed behind her. The house was quiet save for her footsteps as she walked around the ground floor, looking for the door to the basement. It didn’t take too long to find it, so much easier than trying to figure out which tree held the warding rune that would collapse the magic shield that witches had favored a few centuries back.

She took the creaky stairs two at a time, jumping over the final few steps and landing on light feet. The basement was dark and smelled like old, cold dirt under the ever present stench of rotting magic. A quick glance around showed a variety of runes staining the floor and an altar in the corner.

The table was old, probably an antique but it didn’t show any sign of ware at all and the cloth on top of it was the exact same cloth that had been on the sibling’s altar the last time she’d dealt with them. And then there was the amulet.

The amulet that was anchoring the whole festering spell. The amulet that had existed for almost as long as Izareal had, in one form or another. It had been a gift from Ariel, given to Eve when the first and third human had to leave the garden, it had sat around Helen of Troy’s throat, Freyja had had it for a few centuries before she’d been killed by a priest, and then the demons had found it.

That was when the amulet had been turned from an item of female power and towards darker purposes. Izareal almost wished that she had the time to strip the darkness from it and bring it back to its original purpose but she didn’t have the power for that. Even if she did she didn’t have the same strength of aspect that Ariel had.

Ariel had been… overwhelming at times, her very presence intoxicating, drawing everyone towards her. She’d had many angels panting after her without even trying and had even turned Michael’s head a time or two. Sex hadn’t really been invented at that point but the urge to please the other woman had been potent.

And the demons and their witches had turned her gift to Eve into a net of darkness that was being used to summon up Samhain. If Izareal ever found the demon responsible for that idea she would gut them and string them up for the crows. A clean kill was too good for that demon.

Izareal strode over to the altar and snatched the amulet off. She felt the alarm spell trigger and she grinned to herself.

She brought her hand up to stare at the black stone sitting in the claws of the raven wrought in gold. It had been a clear, crystal blue, the same blue as Ariel’s eyes when it had sat around Eve’s neck and Helen’s and Freyja’s. Izareal prodded at the spell with her grace.

There was a soul inside the stone, wrapped in the festering magic of the spell. Only the one though, which meant that the siblings hadn’t gotten a chance to cast the second part of the spell. That was good, she wouldn’t have to rip the spell to pieces which would destroy the amulet outright.

Izareal spun and sat in one smooth movement to wait. The witches should be here soon, there was no way they’d leave their altar alone for too long, the spell work was incredibly delicate at this phase, fragile even.

The sister showed up first, because of course she did, she was in love with Samhain after all. Not that Izareal had any room to start pointing fingers, she loved someone far more dangerous and inappropriate.

The witch was wearing a glamour over her natural visage, it was young, barely out of puberty and had golden hair rather than her natural bark brown. Under it she looked to be in her mid forties, just as beautiful as she had been the last time Izareal had seen her but not the drop dead bombshell she’d crafted her glamour to look like.

“You!” The witch snarled, magic gathering around her hand.

“Me.” Izareal stood in one fluid motion, letting the amulet dangle from her fingers.

She’d unraveled most of the magic around the soul and the rest of it would disappear by midnight. It still stank of black magic and rotten power but the sense was less than the witch standing in the doorway.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, now could you?” The witch asked.

“I could say the same of you, he’s locked up for a reason, why the Heaven would you think letting him out is a good idea?” Izareal barely finished speaking before there was a curse flying towards her with a witch close on its heels.

She dodged, sidestepping the magic and the witch with ease, letting her blade fall out of her grace and into her hand. She swiped at the witch but the other woman moved faster than a human could usually.

Izareal grinned and lunged after her. Blades crossed and the sound of metal against metal rang through the basement.

The witch tried to push up against her blade and Izareal laughed. Silly little mortal witch, her strength, no matter how much power the demon gave her, was no match for an angel’s. Izareal could barely feel the pressure the witch was trying to put on the blade.

“You shouldn’t have tried to raise him, especially not with Lucifer this close to rising.” Izareal’s smile wasn’t pretty or friendly.

“I’d think you’d be glad he’s rising.”

Disconnect.

“I refuse to watch him die.”

Swipe. Dodge.

“We both know he’ll beat Michael if he tries.”

Connect.

“We both know Michael is a cold hearted son of a bitch who cares about nothing except orders.”

Disconnect.

Izareal knocked away a thrust meant to bury itself in her gut and grabbed the witch’s wrist. She spun them until the witch’s back was to her and plunged her blade into the witch’s chest all the way to the hilt.

There was a scream from behind her, male but overly shrill and she turned to see the brother standing in the doorway. He, at least, wasn't wearing a glamour but his magic was also ten times worse than his sisters and Izareal could see the marks on his soul that showed that he’d been preparing himself to become Samhain’s vessel.

This was going to be  _ fun _ .

*****

The Halloween hunt had been incredibly short, almost comically so. They’d barely set foot in the town before Z lost her shit, she’d taken one whiff of the air in town before her eyebrow had started twitching and a snarl had pasted itself across her face. There had been sparks dancing in her eyes.

Sam had had barely enough time to ask what was going on before Z had hiked one leg over the side of her motorcycle and had taken off down the road at a brake neck pace. Dean and Sam watched her go with matching expressions of mild shock.

“What the fuck?” Dean asked no one in particular.

Resignation began creeping up Sam’s spine, Z had had reactions like this in the past. Generally the only times it happened were when there were demons around. Z  _ hated _ demons, which wasn’t all that surprising given her species and half the times that she’d gone tearing off she’d called him half an hour later to say that whatever hunt they’d come to take care of was done with and they needed to move towns again.

Sam had stopped buying motel rooms after the second time because Z had rushed them out of town so fast that his head had spun. That wasn't going to be an option this time around though, it was late and the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon. The brothers had driven through the night to find new rooms before and they’d probably end up doing it again before too long but Z had been forcing them to get a full seven hours at least ever since Dean had gotten back.

“Well, lets go get a room.” Sam sighed.

“No, seriously, Sammy, what the fuck?” Dean turned to look at his brother.

“She’ll be back in a few hours, don’t worry about it.” Sam told him.

“She just went tearing off like there were hellhounds on her tail, except she wouldn’t be worried about that because she’s an angel. What the fuck, Sammy?”

Sam took a deep breath. “So you know how I said I got a bit obsessed with Lilith and Z would go off for a few hours to hunt demons.”

“Yeah.”

“That was her ‘there are a shit ton of demons in town and they are so dead’ face, Dean, she’ll be back in a few hours.” Sam explained.

Dean squinted at him. “Wait, so this happens every time there’s a demon nearby?”

“No, she leaves crossroads demons alone for the most part, says that if adults are stupid enough to sell off their soul its not really the demons fault. They don’t really stay top side all that often apparently, except for their king and Z doesn’t even know where he is.” Sam started walking towards the motel’s office.

Z did show back up a few hours later, smelling like blood and magic and ash. Her eyebrow was twitching as she marched into the motel room, dropping an amulet on the table before stomping into the bathroom.

The shower started running almost immediately after.

“Women of Paris come gather your bloody bouquets,” Z’s voice rose in one clear note as steam crept under the bathroom door, “Now gaze on our Goddess of Justice, with her shimmering, glimmering blade. As she kisses these traitors, she sings them a last serenade! Sing! Swing! Savor the sting as she severs you - Madame Guillotine!”

“Well then,” Dean said.

“Slice! Come, Paradise! You’ll be smitten with, Madame Guillotine!”

“How much do you want to bet it was witches?” Sam examined the amulet with careful eyes, careful not to touch it.

“That’s a sucker bet.” Dean told him.

“It was a pair of witches!” Z yelled over the shower. “I’ve met them before! Fucking little sadistic bitches the both of them! They were trying to raise Samhain!”

“Trying?” Dean called back.

“Well, they’re dead now aren’t they?! Good riddance!” There was a sharp thunk and then the shower turned off almost as abruptly as it had turned on. “They hit me with a Father damned exsanguination curse! Their magic felt like rot and how long have those assholes been alive!?”

Z shoved the bathroom door open, her hair was up in a loose bun and she was wearing a shirt at least three sizes too big for her. It was adorable, especially since she was at least half a foot shorter than Dean.

“Sam, if you touch that amulet I will not be responsible for what happens next.” Z’s eyes snapped to where Sam was peering at the amulet.

“What does it do?” Sam backed up as Z approached.

“It’s the anchor for the first half of the spell they were casting, we need to wait until midnight to destroy it.” Z flopped sideways onto Sam’s bed.

“Why midnight? Why can’t we destroy it now?” Dean moved to the fridge to grab a beer.

“Because, if we destroy it now then the spell will go and find a new vessel and its more likely to latch onto someone living than a piece of wood. And then I’d have to kill one of you and I’d rather not see if I still have the ability to resurrect you.” Z growled into the coverlet.

“Still?” Sam asked.

“Fallen.” Z waved her hand in the air like that explained everything.

Her wing shimmered into existence and she closed her eyes on a yawn. Z rolled onto her stomach and snuggled into her crossed arms. Dean stared at her for a second and then looked at Sam to see if he was concerned about her apparent nonchalance.

“Wake me up if it starts screaming, if it doesn’t I’ll be up by eleven thirty.” Z mumbled.

“Is she serious?” Dean asked.

“Yeah.” Sam snorted at the look of mild horror on his brother’s face.

Sam thought he would have been used to this by now, he’d gotten over Z’s blase attitude about almost everything by the second week and it had been a month since Dean had been pulled out of Hell. Z could nap, or well, not nap, she was an angel after all, but rest almost anywhere, at any time. Apparently millennia of living by yourself without any constants was boring and Z had admitted to sleeping through the later half of the american witch hunts.

“We have a magical artifact that could start randomly screaming and she’s just going to sleep until it’s time to kill it?” Dean had the disbelieving squinty look plastered across his face.

“Pretty much.” Sam kept his face completely blank as he watched his brother’s face spasm in utter shock.


	10. Chapter 9: Parting Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters find out that Heaven isn't happy about their travel companion and Izareal meets up with Gabriel.

“You were warned, Izareal.” A deep voice growled and Sam was out of bed with his gun ready faster than his brain could come fully awake.

Castiel was standing in the corner of the room, flanked by a dark skinned man with the same general, stick up his ass baring. Z was standing between them and the two beds in a defensive stance, wing carporial and spread to protect the two brothers.

Dean was awake too, gun aimed at the dark skinned man, angel, whatever.

“You were warned about staying with the Winchester brothers.” Castiel repeated. “Why are you still interfering in Heaven’s plans?”

“No, you popped in, were vaguely creepy and ominus and then flew off again. That’s not a warning that’s a theatrical performance. And who says I’m interfering, I don’t even know what your plans are.” Z snarked.

“I don't even know why we’re letting the traitor speak for herself.” The other angel said.

“Cas I know but who the fuck are you?” Dean barked, cocking his gun.

“This is Uriel, he’s what you might call a specialist.” Castiel was clearly trying to be diplomatic.

Z snorted in clear amusement. “Don’t try to dress it up, Castiel. He’s a demolitions expert. One who takes far too much pleasure in wiping out human life.”

“You should be silent, traitor, and we might let you live.” Uriel said.

“Demolitions expert.” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You were going to wipe out the whole Goddamned town!”

“Samhain was one of the seals, we could not risk his rising.” Castiel placated.

“Yeah and Izareal found the witch that was doing it in under ten minutes.” Sam widened his stance ever so slightly. “What was preventing you from doing the same thing?”

“Sam, you’re not being fair.” Z sighed. “I’ve been on earth far longer than they have. I’ve had a longer time to acclimate and deal with magic users as a whole.”

“Not being fair?” Sam sputtered, almost unable to believe his ears. “Not fair? How I’m I the one being unfair when those two came here to kill you? And call you a traitor?”

“Did she tell you how she Fell?” A nasty smile began to spread across Uriel’s face.

“She Fell taking a blade for one of you.” Sam said.

“And do you know who she took that blade for?” Uriel’s face darkened.

Sam stared at him in confusion for a few seconds before Dean spoke up. “Yeah, I know. And I don’t see why it matters either way, who she took that blade for. She’s lost enough as it is, let her be.”

“It figures that you wouldn’t care about her loyalties, given that your brother is the boy with the demon blood.” Uriel sneered.

“Fallen blood.” Izareal corrected, voice sharp enough to cut through steel. “Or did you forget that Azazel was one of us before the Fall.”

“He was never one of mine.” Uriel said

“True, he was more concerned with creating nebulas than killing everything that vaguely displeased him.” Izareal snapped.

“Star Weavers, always so temperamental. At least the ones who stayed have the courtesy to keep their mouths shut.”

Izareal laughed, a sharp bark of a sound that threw her head back. “Oh, like you have any room to talk about temper. I remember you before my Fall, they don’t call you the funniest angel in your garrison because you can deal with criticism.”

Castiel’s brow furrowed in mild confusion as he glanced between the other two angels. Dean rolled his shoulders back as he glared at the two invading men.

“Get out.” He growled.

“Dean-” Castiel started to say.

“No, Cas, you brought this asshole here to destroy an entire town. The threat is already dealt with so get out.” Dean interrupted.

Castiel pulled himself into a more upright stance. “Uriel.”

The other angel scowled and then they were gone. The rustle of their wings the only indication that they’d been there in the first place.

Z relaxed by inches after the other angels left, wing sagging ever so slightly before she tucked it against her back. She turned to face them, relief clear in her eyes as she looked at them.

“Well, that should hold them off for a bit.” She said.

Sam lowered his gun slowly. “For a bit? Z, have they been threatening you?”

“It doesn’t matter, Sam, it’s fine.” Z waved his concern off.

“No, it isn’t.” Dean crossed his arms and looked at her. “How long have they been threatening you?”

“Not long, it’s really fine. They just don’t like that I’m outside of Heaven’s sphere of influence, or Hell’s, for that matter. I’m a wild card and they don’t like that I’m influencing you.” Z turned to walk into the kitchen.

“So it’s our fault that you’re in danger?” There was a sinking sensation in the pit of Sam’s stomach.

“No, Sam, it’s just Heaven being assholes. You don’t need to worry about it, I’ll be perfectly fine.”

“Z, can we please take this seriously, they treatened to kill you for fuck sake.” Sam put the gun down and ran both of his hands through his hair.

“We don’t need to though, they’re not going to kill me.” Z turned back to face him.

“Really, because Cas sounded pretty okay with killing you.” Dean chimed in, face a mask of disbelief.

“Castiel is young, young enough that his first memories are of the War, it’s probably what allowed him to be the one to reach you. He’d probably see my death as a mercy. I can’t fly anymore, I only have one wing and most of my siblings would consider that a fate worse than death. But being young also means he’s less powerful than most of the older angels.” Z explained.

“Is he more powerful than you?” Dean asked.

“What?” Z blinked in confusion.

“You’re talking around the issue, Izzy.” Dean pointed out. “I’ve seen Sammy do it enough times to know when it’s happening.”

“Fine.” Z snapped. “Yes, he’s more powerful than I am but I have tricks up my sleeve that he doesn’t. If it came down to a fight I’d do just fine.”

“But what happens if it isn’t a fair fight?” Sam asked.

“Then I’ll deal with it.”

“No, you won’t, you already gave a wing for one of your siblings and you’ve told us both that you refuse to kill any of them. If they’re trying to kill you, that will be in no way a fair fight.” Dean said.

“It doesn’t matter though! I’m not leaving you two! I’m not letting you two do this alone because it’s my fucking fault that Lucifer is still alive! Because I couldn’t watch his execution! I don’t want anyone else dead!” Z threw her arms up in exasperation.

“But they’ll kill you if you stay!” Sam yelled.

“I don’t care!”

“I do! If we’re a danger to you I don’t want you here! If they’re going to kill you because you're helping us I don’t want you with us!” Sam bellowed.

Silence.

Complete and utter silence fell over the room as Z lowered her arms back to her sides. Her hands slowly balled into fists as her face shut down, going dangerously still and blank. Her green eyes dimmed as she swallowed heavily.

“Alright then.” Her voice was void of all emotion as she bowed deeply and sang softly. “So fill to me the parting glass. Goodnight and joy be with you all.”

Then Z snapped her fingers and spun on one heel. She was out the door before Sam could even truly register the words. He rushed to the door as he heard her motorcycle rev and he got there just in time to see her go tearing off down the street. He could feel Dean behind him as he shut the door and banged his head against it.

“Well, we royally fucked that one up didn’t we?”

“Shut up, Dean.”

“You know she’s not going to be coming back this time right?” And now Sam could practically hear the judging eyebrow his brother was giving his back.

“I know, Dean.”

“We’re fucked.”

“Yeah, we’re fucked.”

*****

“So you think that it’s funny having them beg you to stop, enjoy watching them suffer do y-”

“The Winchester brothers are idiots!”

Gabriel blinked. The pedophilic piece of shit he was dangling over the hellhound pit blinked. The hellhounds in said pit growled hungrily.

It took Gabriel a moment to realize that, no, he hadn’t been hearing things and yes, that was Izareal behind him. He turned around to face her, a grin stretching across his face in greeting.

“Izzy.” And he could see her wings. Shit, Gabriel hated looking at Izareal’s wings, hated the guilt and sadness that spread through his grace when he was forced to gaze upon them. “What are you doing here, honey bunch?”

“The Winchester brothers are both massive idiots.” Izareal repeated, the fury on her face incandescent as she stalked into the room.

“Oh, and what have they done this time?” Gabriel asked, taking one hand off the piece of shit’s lapel and letting him dangle by one arm.

The piece of shit screamed in terror, clutching at Gabriel’s hand and kicking his feet towards the ledge Gabriel was standing on, trying desperately to get himself onto land that wasn’t full of open air and hell hounds.

“For fucks sake, Gabriel, just drop him.” Izareal huffed.

Gabriel obeyed because he couldn’t tell her no. He’d never been able to tell Izareal no, not after what had happened to her. Not after what he’d helped do to her.

“So, why are the Winchester brothers idiots?” Gabriel asked to the backdrop of high pitched screaming and happy barks.

“Well.” Izareal started. “You know how the Apocalypse is coming up?”

“Yes.” Gabriel said.

And, yeah, he knew the Apocalypse was coming, it wasn’t like anyone with the senses and two brain cells to rub together couldn’t see it. He’d been trying to avoid thinking about it, trying to bury that knowledge under his normal persona but at this point most of the essential seals were broken and all Lilith had to do was sit pretty in the church.

“And the Winchesters are the vessels.” Gabriel blinked at her in mild shock. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, it took ten seconds of just looking at Sam’s soul for me to realize who he was. It’s not like it's a well guarded secret.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to point it out though.”

“You already know, it doesn’t matter, don’t think I didn’t notice that little time loop you threw up in an attempt to get Sam’s more violent tendencies handled.” Izareal quirked an eyebrow at him and Gabriel tried not to squirm under her gaze.

“Point.” He admitted.

“I’ve been trying to keep Sam on the straight and narrow because if he doesn’t end up drinking demon blood, maybe, just maybe we can prevent this show from going on tour or at least minimize the damage.”

Gabriel had honestly forgotten that Izareal didn’t want Lucifer to get out of his cage. She loved him, she loved him more than Gabriel did, more than the other Star Weavers had. And while she wanted him back, wanted him in her mind again, wanted him free again, she didn’t want that at the cost of his life and if he escaped the cage Michael would kill him.

“And then, of course, Heaven started to notice and the others decided that I needed to be eliminated.” That was news to Gabriel.

“They wanted to what?” He asked, all six of his wings fanning out in fury.

“Oh, put those away, it’s not as if you’re impressing anyone.” Izareal waved away his protective rage with one hand.

Gabriel sputtered. “It’s not about impressing anyone, Izzy, you just told me our siblings threatened to kill you.”

“It’s not like this is the first time one of us has come close to dying.” Izareal deadpanned.

“Really?” Gabriel raised one eyebrow.

“Sparta.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to protest and then shut it with a gentle click of teeth. “Point.”

Sparta had not been a good idea, for either of them. Eros, aka Cupid, had not been pleased to see two of his mother’s siblings hanging out in what had been one of the central areas of her influence. The ensuing fight had ended with Gabriel fleeing across the Mediteranean Sea, dragging Izareal along behind him while Eros followed them as fast as his single set of wings would carry him.

“Anyway, Sam took offence at their empty threats-” Empty threats his ass, if Heaven hadn’t been serious he’d go back to being Daddy’s little erand boy without complaint, “- and decided that if I was in danger by being with them then I couldn’t stay with them while they sorted out the whole Apocalypse mess that our  _ stupid _ siblings started.”

“So they did start it then?” Gabriel asked.

“Of course they started it, why the fuck wouldn’t they?” Izareal had started pacing. “Father left the building shortly after he sired that demigod and honestly I can’t blame him because some of the shit I’ve heard from Heaven is actually happening, our family’s gone to shit!”

“Our family already went to shit,” Gabriel pointed out.

“More to shit then.” Izareal waved it off with one hand, wing fluttering furiously. “Sometimes I wish Lucifer was out here so I could punch him in his stupid face or that Michael was down here so I kick his shins in. The two of them were so fucking stupid.”

“Not Dad?”

“I’d rather not get vaporized on the spot, thanks. At least with those two I’d have a chance to survive it.” Izareal paused to glare at him before continuing her loop.

“Not with Mikey you wouldn’t.” Gabriel told her.

“If I’m that close to Michael I’m dying either way, might as well go out with a bang before the genoside of an entire planet,” Izareal snapped.

“Michael wants to bring Paradise-”

“Michael wants to wipe the slate clean and wait for Daddy to come fix his problems for him.” Izareal started humming under her breath.

Gabriel whistled to himself as he watched Izareal hum and move. He recognized the tune, it was an old folk song and familiar enough that he could hear the words in every note. She was really upset if she was humming that song, one of the witches she’d tutored had introduced her to it, one of the ones who’d been burned to death.

“It is a bit like leaving a toddler alone in a department store isn’t it?” Gabriel took a step forward to lay his hand on Izareal’s shoulder.

She stilled almost instantly, going completely motionless in that way only angels could. He hadn’t seen her do that in over a millennia, habit and necessity had trained them both to blend in. They’d almost always been that little bit more than humans but they’d mostly managed to keep themselves close enough to pass.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright, there are still 50 seals left before Lilith can even consider dying. Ten of those are time sensitive and necessary if they want Lucifer out without crippling him.” Gabriel tried to sooth.

“Those ten are easy and can be done almost anywhere, there’s no way that we can cover all the locations where those rituals can take place.” Izareal’s voice was slightly strained.

“No, we can’t, but it gives us a time frame to find Lilith. If we kill her now the Cage won’t open.” Gabriel said.

And then he had an arm full of little sister, her wing wrapping around him in a hug. Gabriel smiled as he wrapped his own sets over her own in a more defined sign of protection. If no one ever hurt Izareal again it would be too soon, she’d already lost a wing and a segment of her grace she didn’t deserve to feel anymore pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're half way there.


	11. Interlude: Messages to an Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The varrying answer machine messagers left on Izareal's phone by the Winchester brothers.

**_Beep_ **

“ _ Hey, Izzy, I’m sorry about Sammy. I’ll talk to him about it, okay. I know that he can be an idiot sometimes but give him a chance to apologize, yeah _ .” Dean sighed heavily. “ _ We’ve got a new hunt lined up, a bunch of really weird shit happening a couple of towns over. Call us when you get the chance? I’m gonna start to get worried if we don’t hear from you _ .”

**_Beep_ **

Izareal put the phone down and rubbed her hands across her face. She’d calmed down by now and she knew that Sam hadn’t really meant what he’d said. He’d been angry and shaken by the fact that Heaven was trying to kill her.

Izareal took a deep breath and got to her feet, there was no time to contemplate that right now, she needed to get back to her search.

*****

**_Beep_ **

“ _ Hey, um, hey, Z, I fucked up, I know I fucked up and I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry. You don’t need to come back, you don't even need to come back. I just… I want you to know I’m sorry, so, so sorry _ .” Sam sounded vaguely drunk, or sick, or something. “ _ And, maybe, maybe let me know that you’re not dead, that they didn’t… that they didn’t. _ ”

**_Beep_ **

Izareal sighed, staring at the screen as the message cut off. She wasn’t angry anymore, she didn’t think she could be, not at Sam, not long term. He was too bright for that, too well meaning and too pure of heart.

But it still hurt, the words branded into her.

She’d told herself that she’d stay with Sam until he told her to leave and he had. She had other things to do, things that she couldn’t carry out while looking over her shoulder for Castiel or one of her other siblings.

Seal were breaking, one at a time and quickly enough that it was clear Heaven wasn’t even fucking trying to stop them from breaking.

*****

**_Beep_ **

_ “Um, so, Z, _ ” Sam started to say before snorting in amusement. “ _ We may, may have found a psychic that, uh, well, he’s writing stories about our lives. _ ”

“ _ It’s not funny, Sammy! _ ” Dean yelled from the background.

“ _ Yes, it is! _ ” Sam wheezed like something had just hit him in the diaphragm. “ _ We have a fan base! You have fangirls!” _

**_Beep_ **

Izareal opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again and then broke down into clear, bell-like laughter.

Gabriel found her a few minutes later, bent over her phone with tears in her eyes, wing fluttering behind her in pure glee as she flipped through fan forms. They were glorious, the complete and utter wealth of nerd rage and ecstasy enough to cheer her up.

They’d been to a church earlier that day to stop a seal from breaking. It had been nasty, an awful ritual that had required the deaths of fifteen virgins and because demons were warped fuckers some of those girls had been less than thirteen years old.

Gabriel watched her for a few seconds before demanding to find out what was so hilarious. His reaction to the books that had been published was to immediately finance the rest of the author’s work and troll the fan sites for mentions of Izareal.

“Dear Dad, this is adorable,” Gabriel exclaimed at one point before reading out the quotes he’d found, “‘Izareal is the best OMG, I love her soooo much and if you try to bad mother her I will cut you’, ‘She isn’t a Mary Sue you fucker, she’s deep and her story is tragic’, and wow, okay this one’s a bit creepy ‘I want to wrap sam and Izzy in cotton wool and keep them safe’. I think you might need to put a restraining order on some of these people.”

“They think I’m a fictional character,” Izareal protested.

“Wait till they find out about Lucy, it’ll give your story extra pathos,” Gabriel posed with his hand clenched in front of his chest and his eyes staring off into the distance.

Izareal threw a pen at him.

*****

**_Beep_ **

_ “Hey, Z, we found Lilith, we found out that she’s going to break the final seal tonight. _ ” Dean paused and took a deep breath. “ _ Sammy’s trying to keep calm but the demon we got the information off of… Well, she said some shit I’m not going to repeat. Seeing you again might do him some good, hell, it might do me some good, so after this is over can we all sit down and have a meal or something? Just… If you don’t want to you need to know that I’m really fucking thankful for what you did for Sam. Wish us luck.” _

**_Beep_ **


	12. Chapter 10: Inevitability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In every world The Cage is opened.

Here’s the thing about inevitability, the thing that always trips people up, sending them head first into a cascade of cause and effect that they had no hope of breaking: you didn’t realize that something is inevitable until you were in the middle of it.

Izareal hadn’t been prayed to in years, not since the last of the students she’d taught magic to had died at the hands of the Salem mob, since she hadn’t been able to save one of her own. It had been rare for people, even when she had had people who knew her true name, to call on her but there was no way any angel could forget the sensation.

Prayer was a very distinctive feeling, some angels even called it uncomfortable but Izareal had never seen it that way. It was strange and powerful but it connected her more fully with those she had taken to guard in a way not unlike the press of grace against grace that she hadn’t truly felt since before the Fall.

The guardian angels that had been on Earth had given her a wide berth after all and Gabriel was incredibly hesitant to even interact with her on a human level, let alone an angelic one. It was disappointing and a bit disheartening but Izareal could understand trauma, could understand needing space and limits so she left well enough alone.

It had been centuries since Izareal had felt a prayer, heard words tracing themselves across her grace and feelings not her own pressing up against it but she would never be able to forget the feel of it. Dean’s soul was stronger than most, even with Hell casting part of it in shadow his prayer hit her harder than any other ever had.

“Izareal!” Her name, like a shout in an empty room, rang through her mind wrapped in protective rage and the bitter tang of fear.

The sound of desperation in his voice would have been enough to startle her out of a dead sleep if she had been inclined to sleep. Gabriel slept regularly, though Gabriel had always been much more of a hedonist than she was.

Izareal pulled over and turned off her bike, listening for the rest of Dean’s panicky message. She didn’t need to wait all that long.

“We fucked up! Lilith wasn’t breaking the final seal, she was the final seal!”

Izareal cursed under her breath and restarted her bike with a flick of her mind. She was close to the church where Lucifer would rise, she’d thought she had more time, that they all had more time. But now Lilith was dead and she had only a handful of minutes before Lucifer rose once more.

Lucifer…

Izareal shook her head and flexed her grace. She couldn’t fly, that was true, she hadn’t been able to fly for millennia but over the years she had found ways to get around that inability. The internal combustion engine had just made those easier.

Traveling at the speed of sound along a country road toward a church where the devil was rising probably wasn’t the best idea Izareal had ever had but Sam and Dean were in danger. Izareal wasn’t going to let those two die because they’d tried to stop the apocalypse before it could get a foot in the door.

She probably should have told them Lilith was the final seal but she’d been so busy the past couple of months that she hadn’t had the time. Or, rather she had but talking to Sam after giving him the silent treatment for so long would have been beyond heart breaking.

Izareal reached out, touching the piece of grace that Gabriel had attached to her, the part he didn’t know she knew about and opened up a mind link. It hurt a bit, the stretch as old pathways were forced open enough to send thoughts, she hadn’t opened a mind link since Ariel had been dragged back to Heaven. She hadn’t had one opened up with her since God’s son had gone on his campaign to save the innocents from Hell.

_ ‘Izareal!’ _ Gabriel’s voice hurt, it was too loud, too much, too there but she pushed that aside.

_ ‘His coming, Gabriel, Lilith is dead.’ _ Izareal cried down the link before abruptly severing it.

Hopefully that would be enough warning for him to hide his trail and bunker down. Gabriel didn’t want to fight or pick sides and he had enough power to make hiding work, to make running a viable option. No one had realized he was on earth in the past however many thousand years it had been since the War and Izareal wanted to keep it that way.

Time.

Time had always been her enemy no matter its length or the point of reference she gave it. Too short a time with Lucifer, too long a time on her own, the War that had stretched on and on, drawing seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. The only moment where time had been even vaguely on her side had been in the second before Michael’s blade fell and she’d fought every millisecond to get between that blade and Lucifer’s kneeling form.

However, even though time was Izareal’s enemy she was still an angel and, while she couldn’t rewind time like a watch or pause it like a video, she could stretch it like taffy, pull it out until it was ready to snap, and drive her motorcycle through the space between seconds.

She reached the church in less than a hundredth of a second, diving off of the bike and rolling up onto her feet. Her grace kept it from carreaning into anything but Izareal wasn’t focused on that, couldn’t pay it any mind since she was fighting time itself.

She could feel it now that she was closer, the final seal to the Cage cracking under the demon blood spilled in its name. It was… it didn’t feel like she’d thought it would, a wash of darkness and rot poking tendrils up through to the open air in an attempt to coacse itself back into a semblance of life.

Lucifer had been in the Cage for a long, long time and his Legion had lost their angelic status almost as soon as they’d stepped foot in Hell. Angels weren’t built for solitude, weren’t built for the aching maw of loneliness that separation from the Host caused. There was no telling what had happened to the Morningstar while he’d been locked in the Pit.

Izareal hadn’t touched another angel’s grace in centuries, Gabriel was the only one she talked to with any regularity but she’d had Humanity to keep her company. They were close enough to angelic company that she’d learned to cope but Lucifer had had no one and nothing but thoughts of his revenge.

She couldn’t move as fast when she was on her own two feet rather than a bike and she could feel the seconds grind by, ticking down. 66 seconds, that was how long the final seal would take to break in full, Lilith may have been the key but the lock was old and operated on rules far older than earth itself.

Magic had rules, especially Enochian magic of the caliber the Cage used. Trapping an Archangel was no laughing matter and no easy feet, even if God had been the one to impose the punishment.

It could be done, it wasn’t easy and making sure the method wasn’t permanent was half of the battle. The rules had to be bent to the point of nearly snapping and no further or the results were… well, Pompie hadn’t just been a  _ natural _ disaster.

Izareal reached the end of the hall and slipped between the double doors before the grace dampening field could snap shut. Then she let go of the time she’d been fighting so viciously.

“Dean! Sam! You need to get out of here!” She yelled.

The brother’s turned from where they’d been staring at the blood circle crawling it’s way across the floor. Sam looked shaky, like he’d been going for three days at full bore already and was only upright through a combination of black coffee and pure, bloody minded stubbornness. Dean just looked grim, like he’d accepted their fate already.

“Z, get Sammy out of here! I’ll try to hold him off!” He barked and she knew he was enough like her to sacrifice his soul to Hell but really now.

“No! Luci’s gonna come out of there bum fuck naked! You’ll be vaporized!” Izareal grabbed them both and tried to pull them toward the door.

She could feel the beginnings of the Cage opening, deep beneath their feet, the swirl of Lucifer’s power coming up to meet the primordial magic of the last seal. The light was starting to shine through to the surface, becoming visible to the human eye.

“Shit.” Izareal breathed.

The doors banged shut behind her, the grace ward engaging at the same time. It was a laughable precaution, one that would do fuck all against Lucifer in all his glory but it would definitely keep any angel weeker than an Archangel in the line of fire for his rage. And it left the two helpless human’s futally banging against the door.

Izareal’s eyes fell closed and her head tilted back so that she was facing the ceiling. They were trapped, stuck like a couple of flies under a glass, no way out and a dwindling supply of oxygen. She couldn’t even use her grace to save the boys from their fate, at least Lucifer wouldn’t  _ try _ to kill Sam.

“DON’T LOOK!” Izareal roared, her True Voice buzzing at the edges of her mortal one as she pulled her wing into the mortal plane.

Lucifer wasn’t there yet, not in truth or in full. The pillar of light that was currently expanding inside the circle was the grace equivalent of someone reaching out a hand to pull themselves up. The light was low enough that it couldn’t be burning the boys’ eyes quite yet but they would be blinded if she didn’t get them under her wing and fast.

Izareal tried to get them shielded, to block out the tidal wave of grace that was only just beginning to erupt from the hole. She understood why the grace ward had been implemented now, Lucifer was going to get out of that Cage whether the angels liked it or not but they could prevent the surrounding area from getting flattened.

Whoever had made the ward had made it weakest at its peak, which wouldn’t make much sense unless you were trying to direct an explosive blast of power. It looked like there were still angels out there who’s minds weren’t filled with blood or scarred from the War. She hoped that they were high enough in Heaven’s ranks to talk some Father be damned sense into Michael.

If Izareal had both her wings this would be easier, she would hide one brother under each wing, cocoon them all in a wall of feathers. But she didn’t have both her wings, she’d given that up and while she would never regret saving Lucifer’s life she was cursing the fact that this room was so small.

There was cold at her back, a freezing, muscle seizing cold that she knew all too well. Lucifer’s grace pressed against her back and she didn’t dare turn to face him, to see what the look on his face would be.

Izareal didn’t want to know whether he’d welcome her back to him with open arms or curse her name for not joining him in the War. Yes, she had saved his life but look at where that had gotten him.

She took a deep breath in, one she didn’t need but it might be the last not tinged with that frostbite inducing grace, and held it. She waited as Lucifer’s grace finally emerged enough for him to get a good look at his surroundings

There was a pause, the progress of his assent stuttering for barely a millisecond. What could make him pause? What had Lucifer so shocked that he fumbled his great escape?

And then the grace was pressing in, less of it and less intense but the burn of the chill across her own was almost excruciating in nature. It wasn’t a bad pain though, it was the stretch of muscles being used once more after they’d been too long dormant and that fact that Lucifer could show any delicacy at all after so long in the Pit was a miracle in and of itself.

‘ **_Izareal._ ** ’ Her name breathed like a prayer through the rudimentary link. ‘ **_You’re alive._ ** ’

And, oh, of course he wouldn’t have known. Of course he couldn’t have known. Lucifer had been cast into the Cage right after her own Fall, his last sight of her had been when she had stepped in front of Michael’s blade.

Lucifer had thought she’d given her life for his, if not in truth then in practice when her own grace bled out. Enough of his troops had sustained grace wounds that he had to know what they looked like, how they acted and how agonizing the demise would be.

Sam made a sound of pure awe and Izareal held back a curse because she’d told him not to fucking look. Then his face is pressed directly into her wing, probably trying to chase the spots from his vision. She hadn’t turned, hadn’t looked at Lucifer but she didn’t think he would be any less beautiful than he was the last time she’d seen him.

A sighted human gazing upon an Archangel in their True Form with no filter, not even the filter of a vessel had to be a sight to see. She could feel her feathers dampening a touch where Sam had buried his face.

It was starting to get loud, the squealing of ancient hinges moving for the first time ringing out in the enclosed space of the church. The grind of grace on grace and the small sounds Lucifer was making as he tried to squeeze out of the tiny hole in the side of his Cage were worse.

If Izareal didn’t get the boys out of there soon there was going to be some sort of permanent hearing loss but there was no way out. All she could do was sit there and try to save their eyesight, praying that Lucifer didn’t move wrong and obliterate them all in one foul swoop.

They were trapped, they were all dead and Izareal was trying her hardest not to reach back along the grace link Lucifer had opened between them. It was tempting, oh so tempting to just reach out to him and let him handle everything.

She was tired, a bone deep weariness that was sunk deep into her grace. She’d been alone for so long, been the most powerful thing for so long, the protector of all she held dear that the offer of a Choir, to join Lucifer again, even if it was just the two of them was too tempting for words.

And then they were on a plane.


	13. Chapter 11: Lucifer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer escaping the Cage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, fair warning, Lucifer isn't exactly... sane, by which I mean he is incredibly coocoo for coacoa puffs.

Lucifer loved his siblings, loved them with every inch of his being. He loved them all, no matter the age or how long he’d known them.

But, he loved his Star Weavers most of all.

It was a different love than the kind he held for Michael or Gabriel or Raphael or any of his younger siblings. It was more intense, more present, more… more. They were his, undeniably and completely.

And of those Star Weavers, of those angels that had joined him in decorating the cosmos, in crafting fire and light and beauty from balls of gas and ash, Izareal had always been special.

She’d been more, even more than the other Star Weavers.

Lucifer didn’t know why, he never knew why with these things but it had started in the Beginning. He’d plucked her out of a choir, picked her because he’d seen the fire in her eyes and her grace, the talent at her wing tips, the desire to be more that sat at the very heart of her being.

Izareal had been one of the first to make a binary star, clear evidence that she was meant for the work Lucifer had picked her for. She hadn’t been  _ the _ first but it had been  _ her _ first star.

Lucifer had been a bit wary at that revelation, she wasn’t powerful, she hadn’t been of a higher rank than any of the other Star Weavers but she caught his attention, grabbed it and held it. He didn’t know why, only Ariel had pulled such from him before but Ariel had that effect on everyone, even Michael.

Izareal seemed to only affect him.

Then there had been the… disagreement with his brother, with God, with everyone and he had asked his Star Weavers to stand with him. Asked, not demanded, because he wasn’t  _ them _ and would never be  _ them _ . Most of them had followed him, most of them.

Some of them hadn’t, some of them had stayed with Michael. It had hurt, a sharp pain that hadn’t settled at all with time but he could understand their reluctance, hadn’t begrudged them the choice. His Star Weavers were few in number and Michael was a formidable enemy.

Only Izareal had stepped away, stepped aside, stepped back. She’d refused to choose a side, had set herself apart with her head held high and balanced the line between Heaven and Hell with an ease that Lucifer envied.

And then there was the Garden.

Lucifer knew that had been a mistake now that he looked back on it. He hadn’t meant for Gadreel to take the fall and he hadn’t  _ meant _ to cause a war between his siblings.

Hadn’t meant for Death to come, for War to descend on the Host, on his Family.

He didn’t see Izareal during the War, just like he didn’t see Gabriel during the war. He assumed she was dead, assumed Gabriel was dead, assumed the reason they weren’t there was because they couldn’t be, that they no longer existed.

Lucifer’s side had lost because of course they had.

Michael had  _ God _ on his side, he was the righteous son. Even though sound military tactics said taking a smaller, gorilla force up against a larger, more well equiped one in a fair fight was suicide. A fact that Lucifer had only learned when Humanity had invented military tactics several centuries later.

So, after Lucifer’s Legion had been kicked out of Heaven and was sealed into Hell he had been the only one kneeling at the edge of Heaven, right where the planes met. He had stared up into Michael’s face, wreathed by the newly created pearly gates.

Lucifer had looked into those cold, dead, sharp eyes that gazed down at him with something that resembled hate and refused to bow his head. He’d been the only one offered a second chance, an insult to those who had followed him, to the loyalty that they had given him.

Why was he different? How was he worth “saving” when he had been the one to initiate it? When he had been the one to lead them down the pretty path to their own doom.

When he had refused Michael had raised his blade, a blade that would kill anyone and anything besides God, being the oldest blade in existence, the first ever crafted. He’d raised it above his head and, as he brought it down, Lucifer had kept his eyes open.

Lucifer had refused to close his eyes on his death, refused to blink or look away, refused to admit defeat at his brother’s feet. It was the only reason he’d seen her…

Izareal coming out of nowhere and everywhere at once, diving between them, wing outstretched before her as if it could shield them both. He’d watched the blade cut through her wing like a knife through butter, severing it at the joint.

And then she’d fallen, down, down toward Earth, the severed wing falling after her, Raphael screaming as he dove to try and save her.

That was when Lucifer’s  _ Father _ had finally decided to intervene.

After that Lucifer had thought her truly dead. Who could survive a wound to their grace so extensive as to lose a wing?

Lucifer had seen grace wounds on the battlefield, in his own troops and the troops of Heaven. They were never a long term injury, never something that could fester for a few days or even hours before the victim succumbed to nothingness. Raphael had healed those he could with grace wounds, fast and efficient, cauterizing what injuries he could but the angels who had sustained them were still left weak and diminished.

But…

But, oh miracle of miracles, after centuries upon millennia and millennium more, years locked in the dark, in the cold of the Cage he emerged to the sight of his Vessel and Michael’s Vessel in the room where his Cage opened.

Michael’s Vessel who was trying to shield Sam Winchester, Boy King, His Vessel, the only thing his  _ Father _ had ever made for him, had ever gifted him. And, oh, wasn’t his Vessel’s brother a good brother, better than Michael ever would be, protection written across every segment of his soul.

And there, there was Izareal.

One wing because she only had one wing left, the other sacrificed for his safety, for his life, stretched out in front of the two brothers in an attempt to shield them from him. An attempt to protect them from the light that his grace was throwing off.

She was smaller than before, diminished by the damage that had been done to her when she’d saved Lucifer but she was no less captivating. Her grace still shown as brightly as it ever had.

He reached out as carefully as possible, Izareal had always been sensitive to the fluctuations in grace that were common in Choirs. They, all of them, had learned how to modulate those waves after a few years to protect her. She might have only had that pulling effect on him but she was still their sister and they all loved her.

‘ **_Izareal,_ ** ’ he breathed, unable to hold back the awe he was feeling deep in the heart of his grace, ‘ **_you’re alive._ ** ’

Izareal didn’t reply but Lucifer hadn’t really expected her to. She was too focused on the Vessels and trying to find an escape, trying to save them from burning up under the touch of Lucifer’s grace to be able to talk to him in truth.

And even if she was able to Lucifer didn’t know why she’d want to, he was the reason she’d lost her wing after all, even if she’d done so voluntarily. He couldn’t imagine what it was like, living with one wing, half crippled without a Choir to soften the blow.

And she was truly Choirless, he couldn’t feel any other imprint on her grace, no one else had touched her in years, decades, maybe centuries. Rage filled him at that thought, anger that he kept carefully cordoned off in a part of himself that wasn’t touching Izareal, she didn’t need to feel that.

But how dare their fellow angels leave Izareal to suffer alone, to suffer in silence with no one to keep her company but Humanity in all it’s dubious glory. How dare they not welcome her back with open arms when she had done nothing but refuse to fight, refuse to participate in killing her own siblings.

Izareal was, quite possibly, the only angel without a single drop of grace on her hands. The only angel who had never taken another’s life. Could they not see how significant that was? How untainted that left her?

Michael was a fool if he decided that throwing someone like Izareal away was ever an option.

Lucifer reached out to test the confines of the room around him. He didn’t want to go back into the Cage but if he stayed half in and half out of it like he was there was a risk of it closing around him and severing a portion of his grace. That was not an option.

The rage grew to new heights when he realized that not only had there been a ward placed on the church to try and keep him in but that ward was designed to keep everything in the church in with him. The Vessels and Izareal were like flies trapped in a bell jar, one way in and no way out.

Izareal wasn’t an Archangel, she wouldn’t have been able to break through the wards even if she’d tried to do so and the only weak point was directly over his head. Izareal couldn’t fly and while Lucifer admired the courage on the angel who had clearly tried to redirect the force of his exit from the Cage up rather than out he snarled at the fact that they hadn’t thought of what would happen if the Vessels were trapped inside the blast radius.

And then Gabriel was there.

Gabriel, who he’d thought dead, lost along with Izareal in the War, targeted by Michael for his defiance. He was alive and while he felt different he was still the same six winged menace that he’d always been.

Lucifer snarled at him, redirected his grace to shield Izareal and the Vessels from his brother. They were  _ his _ , even Dean who should by all rights belong to Michael but was too good to belong to that dick, and he would not let Gabriel swoop in to drag them up into Heaven.

‘ **_Luci, if you don’t let me get them out of there they’re going to die! Izareal doesn’t deserve that after the shit she’s been through!_ ** ’ Gabriel snapped, grace grating against his own, the terror coursing through him enough to make Lucifer pause.

‘ **_You’ve been keeping track of her,_ ** ’ Lucifer realized.

‘ **_Of course I have, I wasn’t able to save her from exile but I’ve at least tried to keep her alive!_ ** ’ Gabriel yelled.

Lucifer slowly peeled back his grace and the other three beings were gone in an instant. Gabriel had always been a fast little thing, capable of running around to do multiple things almost at once.

Lucifer sighed at the loss of Izareal’s grace before he finally let himself stretch his arms above his head and break through the top of the ward. He was gone in a flash, slipping into the place between planes so that he could search out a temporary Vessel, someone who wouldn’t be sorely missed.

It wasn’t all that hard, even with the little murder campaign Azazel had gone on in an attept to find Lucifer’s true Vessel. Humanity, apparently, bred like rabbits, at least two children per household in most places which lead to rampant spreading of certain genetic lines if you knew what to look for.

Nick was the closest match he could find on such short notice, a man who had lost both his wife and newly born daughter. He had something wrong with his mind, some sort of chemical imbalance that drove home the innumerable flaws in Lucifer’s Father’s design.

If your own mind was the enemy why would you have to suffer through any other hardship. It seemed counter productive for the human mind to be constructed in a fashion where it could sabotage itself.

Persuading Nick to help him didn’t actually take much doing, he barely even had to offer the possibility before the man was practically screaming his consent. What kind of life had the man lived that he would offer himself up to an unknown entity so easily?

“What will you do with me when you take my body?” That was the only question he’d asked, the only thing that seemed to matter to him.

Lucifer had answered truthfully, there was no reason to lie. Then again, Lucifer had never seen a reason to lie most of the time.

He’d send Nick to Heaven, to be with his wife, not their daughter though, their daughter had been too young a soul to stay in Heaven and would have been ushered back into the cycle of rebirth. Lucifer had promised to keep track of her when Nick had asked, an easy thing to do, it wouldn’t take any real thought and barely any power.

Lucifer slipped under Nick’s skin with half a thought, the fit of his form ever so slightly off but not as uncomfortable as he thought it would be. He took a few moment’s to settle, flexing every muscle in Nick’s form one after the other before carefully severing the connection Nick’s soul had to the body.

The reaper swooped in to grab the soul and carry it up to Heaven. Lucifer watched them go with some interest before he closed his eyes and cast his senses out around him.

He wanted to have a talk with Gabriel and Izareal but that would have to wait for a bit. First he needed to find out where exactly his Vessel, his Sam was, and if he was safe, if he and his brother had been damaged by the abrupt transport away from the church.

Gabriel was a gentle soul for the most part and wouldn’t have intentionally hurt them but there had been three of them and two people were hard enough to carry without the addition of a half crippled angel.

Lucifer found Sam fast enough, the connection between them, the tie soul to soul that made them Angel and Vessel allowing Lucifer a glimpse at where the human was and who he was with. He was in the air, on what humans called an airplane with Izareal on one side and Dean on the other. Gabriel was standing in the isle next to them, grace fluttering with nerves.

Lucifer brushed up against his brother as gently as he could, just wanting to feel the press of someone else’s grace against his own. Gabriel went deathly still but let him and didn’t try to run away.

‘ **_We need to talk, brother,_ ** ’ Lucifer said.

‘ **_About what?_ ** ’ Gabriel sounded scared, Gabriel shouldn’t be scared.

Lucifer cooed and tried to pull his grace into a soothing shape but it had been too long since he’d tried and he was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it right. Gabriel didn’t seem to mind though, relaxing ever so slightly into the touch.

‘ **_About Izareal, about why she’s still on Earth, about why she doesn’t have a Choir to call her own. And how you managed to remain undetected for so long, brother,_ ** ’ Lucifer told him.

GAbriel paused for a handful of seconds. ‘ **_Tomorrow, six hours from now, here._ ** ’

Lucifer took the image of a cottage in the middle of nowhere that Gabriel showed him, amused that GAbriel was trying to protect the humans by meeting him far away from any settlement. He let the connection between their grace drop and then folded his legs under him in something Nick’s memories insisted was a pretzel and settled in to wait.


	14. Chapter 12: When in Doubt, Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal proceeds to lose her cool over the world's impending doom and two brothers have a conversation.

“We are fucked,” Z was pacing back and forth across the motel room. “We are so thoroughly utterly fucked. Why are our lives like this? Why did this have to fucking happen?”

“Because Daddy dearest is a dick and couldn’t think of a better solution than tossing Luci in a cage for a few millenia when the option Micky wants to go for is the death penalty. Out of sight out of mind and then he fucked off when the rest of use devolved into little toy soldiers,” the Trickster said from where he was sprawled across Dean’s bed.

“Okay, first of all, why the fuck is the Trickster here?” Dean growled.

Z whirled on the Trickster and gave him a look that should have turned the demigod to ash where he lay. The Trickster just raised his arms as if telling her not to shoot him.

“It’s not like I’m the one who decided to hang around the Vessels when Heaven had a death sentence handing over my head. That was you, sweetheart.” The Trickster gestured vaguely at her.

Z huffed at him and turned to gesture at the Trickster. “Sam, Dean, meet my most irritating older brother and one of the few people I know doesn’t actually want me dead, Gabriel, yes that Gabriel.”

Sam’s jaw hit the floor as he stared at the blonde asshole of a pagan god that had spent an amazing amount of power keeping Sam in a waking nightmare for six months and over a hundred tuesdays. He vaguely knew what Gabriel had been trying to do back then now that he had lived through Dean’s actual death and Z had knocked some sense into him.

The Trickster/Archangel had been going at it in a completely counterintuitive, backwards, and absurd way but Sam could understand it now that he had some distance. And in all honesty the whole, trickster gig was beginning to make a lot more sense now that he knew who Gabriel actually was ‘Angel of Judgement’ indeed.

“What do you mean one of the few, there are at least ten of us.” Gabriel protested.

“Really? Name them.” Z crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the Archangel.

“Me, those two chuckle heads, their adopted father figure, Luci-” Gabriel started ticking names off on his fingers.

“Lucifer just got released from a Cage he’s been locked in for millenia, he doesn’t count. And how do you know he doesn’t want me dead, I’m the reason he was in that fucking Cage in the first place,” Z interupted.

“You saved his life.” Gabriel pointed out, gently like he was trying to tiptoe around something.

“And how much is that worth when we both know what isolation does with us?” Z asked.

“What are you talking abou-” Sam stopped mid sentence as the realization hit. “That’s how you lost your wing. He’s the one you took the blade for.”

“If it was on the battlefield I would have left it alone but an execution,” Z scoffed, “fuck that. Not kneeling in front of the gates after Micheal offered him an out none of the other Weavers got. Not for our eldest brother’s pride.”

“Mickey offered him a chance to repent?” Gabriel asked.

Z rolled her eyes and flopped down into a metal chair which almost immediately shifted into a far more comfortable configuration. “Stop fucking with the furniture and of course he did. Michael was always psychotically attached to Lucifer, you know this, I know this, everyone fuckinh knows this. And he’s an idiot who never bothered to try and understand how attached Lucifer was to all of us. Father interfered after I Fell, not before.”

“Be that as it may,” Gabriel said, “you still saved his life, still gave up a wing for him. That is a debt he can’t ignore, no matter how you look at it. And he doesn’t want you dead because he’s currently pissed off at the fact that Micheal didn’t let you back into Heaven and you spent most of your time down here by yourself.”

Z went still the only sign of any emotion was a slow, carefully considered blink.

“What?” She asked, voice barely louder than a whisper. “When did you have time to talk to him?”

“On the plane after I rescued you. He was trying to track Sam, I think, and found me-” Gabriel started to explain.

“He can track me!” Sam squawked.

“You’re his Vessel, Samalam, of course he can track you.” Gabriel waved off the younger Winchester’s concern without much thought.

“Wait, Lucifer’s meant to wear Sammy around like a meat suit?” Dean edged closer to Sam as he spoke.

“You didn’t tell them?” GAbriel glared at Z.

“It wasn’t exactly relevant until now!” Z snapped before turning to the two brothers. “You two are meant to be our idiot eldest brothers’ Vessels, that’s why Heaven’s so interested in you two, other than Dean being the Righteous Man.”

“And the Fallen blood, don’t forget that,” Gabriel said.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Gabriel, you are ever so helpful,” Z snarked. “Back to the fucking point, Lucifer talked to you?”

“Like I was saying.” Gabriel waved his hand above his head. “He found me on the plane and was practically fuming over the fact you didn’t have a Choir.”

“The fuck would he care?” Z asked.

She looked confused, so confused that Sam almost felt sorry for her. He already felt sorry for her actually, she’d been trying to prevent this exact moment from happening. He couldn’t imagine watching his family tear itself apart at the seams not once, but twice. Sure Dean and Dad had had a few fights over the years but they’d never actually tried to kill each other.

“Izzy, he’s always cared about you.” Gabriel sounded vaguely like he was talking to a small child. “More than the rest of the Star Weavers, even. And even if he didn’t, you and I were the only ones who stepped aside when the fighting started. You far more obviously than me, I pretended to be dead. How could he not pay attention to you after that? And you saved his life, Izzy.”

“I doomed him to the Cage!” Z yelled.

“No, no, Dad did that.” Gabriel stood up from where he was sitting and crossed his arms. “You lost a wing because I couldn’t cauterize the grace wound fast enough and you nearly bled out in the middle of a forest. You think he didn’t notice the fact you’re missing a wing, none of us would be able to miss that particular bit of aesthetics.”

“So, what? He still ended up there because of me.” Z crossed her own arms.

“Holy shit, you really are siblings,” Dean whispered.

The two angels turned to glare at him. Sam snorted in amusement because their expressions of affront were nearly identical, even down to their pursed lips.

“We’re getting off track,” Sam said. “We need to figure out how to stop this train wreck before we jump the tracks.”

“Oh, Sam, we’ve already jumped the tracks, Lilith was the fucking off switch!” Z exclaimed.

Z started pacing back and forth across the room. They watched her for a handful of seconds before Gabriel sighed and reached out to pull her into a hug. Watching him tuck Z’s head under his chin was a bit weird since they were so close in height but Z hugged him back, clinging to him like he was a life line.

“It’s going to be fine, Izzy, we’ll figure it out.” Gabriel started rubbing little circles in the place where her wings would meet her back if she had them out.

“I just don’t want to watch any more of us die,” Z murmured.

“Let me go talk to Luci, find out what he wants to do. He has something to actually live for, why would he want to kill literally everything in existence? Michael’s the one that wants that.” Gabriel tried to sooth.

“He still wants to murder humanity. They only just started being mostly rational about everything, they’re getting better, they always are. They change and grow and it’s beautiful. Why can’t he see that?” Z asked.

“Because he hasn’t been able to see it, none of them have,” Gabriel said. “We should probably try to hide those two knuckleheads from both our idiot brothers before heaven comes looking for them.”

Z took a deep breath and pulled away from the hug.

*****

“You didn’t bring her with you,” Lucifer said.

Gabriel paused in the doorway. That had sounded like a bland comment, an off hand remark that was meant to be a conversation starter but that was only on the surface of things. Lucifer had never taken a Vessel before, of course he didn’t know how vocal inflections worked.

Under the surface, in Lucifer’s true form his wings were hiked up around his ears and ruffled out in an angry and defensive stance. There were sulfur burns and missing feathers all over their brilliantly white length and Gabriel spared a moment to be horrified at what Hell had done to his second favorite sibling.

“You didn’t ask me to,” Gabriel pointed out, “and she’s still trying to get over the fact she failed to prevent the impending apocalypse.”

Lucifer’s head tilted to one side, wings relaxing ever so slightly. “Apocalypse? Where have I heard that word before?”

Gabriel made his way into the room and shut the door behind him snapping up a chair to lounge in as he went. Lucifer tracked him, eyes curious as he flopped down into it.

“It means you want to end humanity Lucifer. Human’s speculate about it often. They’re very aware of their own mortality, don’t you know?” Gabriel smirked at his brother.

Lucifer hummed, his True Voice incredibly close to the surface, close enough that it would have hurt a human if there had been one in the room with them. He turned to inspect the room they were in, walking around it, wings fluttering gently behind him like a fledgeling.

Gabriel couldn’t quite hold back a smile, it had been a long time since he’d seen that particular tick of angel body language. The last person he’d seen do that had to be Eros, he’d met the god briefly before Sparta happened and he’d had to take Greece off his list of possible vacation spots permanently.

“How is she?” Lucifer suddenly asked, like the words had been punched out of him. “I saw her Fall and then I saw her today. How is she besides…”

“The wing?” Gabriel asked.

Lucifer nodded, wings hiking up again. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable with the thought of Izzy being so crippled as to not be able to fly. Gabriel was uncomfortable with that fact, most angels were but he’d had time to get used to it.

“She’s dealing with it the best that any of us can. She… she’s mostly been hunting down the monsters that are the most dangerous to humanity and killing demons. She really doesn't like the demons. You may have to apologize for that one,” Gabriel said.

“If it makes her feel better, I will gladly do so,” Lucifer remarked.

“It might… She’s more concerned with you wanting her dead though.” Gabriel threw that out like a flag in front of a bull.

He needed to know what Lucifer’s reaction would be. Izareal had been hurt too many times by too many people for Gabriel to allow her to be destroyed by the one being who might be able to break her.

Lucifer bristled.

“Why would I want her dead?! She saved my life and she’s  _ mine _ -” Gabriel may have underestimated how attached Lucifer was to their sister, “- my Star Weaver, my Choir mate, mine! Did you suggest that falsehood to her?”

It had been a while since Gabriel had been the center of Lucifer’s negative attention, since he’d had another Archangel’s fury directed his way. It was just as terrifying as it had been the first few times one of his older brothers had lost their temper at him.

“No, but she blames herself for the Cage,” Gabriel hastily pointed out. “She’s been on Earth by  _ herself _ for millenia, Luci, she knows exactly how far loneliness can push one of us from first hand experience.”

“Alone? Weren't you here as well?” Lucifer asked.

“And how well do you think that would have ended?” Gabriel defended. “Not only would she have been consorting with a pagan god-”

“Pagan god?” Lucifer exclaimed.

“-Not important, Luci. But when they found out who I actually was, what do you think would have happened? By herself she was harmless, a half crippled angel who liked playing around in human affairs but with me added to that picture… Well, you have a Star Weaver, one of your most loyal, who chose to step out of the War hanging around the only Archangel who didn’t fight in it. What picture would that have painted?”

There was a long pause as Lucifer processed that information. Gabriel waited, watching emotions flicker across Lucifer’s grace and translate into his wings. Anger, pain, grief, all flicked across him before he finally settled on disgusted afront.

“But, we’re Archangels. How would she have convinced you to step out of the War? She may be  _ mine _ and precious but you had no connection to her. That makes no sense.” Lucifer protested.

“Since when has Mikey ever made any sort of sense?” Gabriel joked.

He didn’t mention his suspicions about Raphael, he didn’t actually know if there was any legitimacy behind them and if they weren’t accurate he didn’t want to poke at the hornet’s nest. Gabriel had been listening to the old channels on occasion and Raphael was planning something, he didn’t know what but he’d caught enough snippets of conversation to know it probably wasn’t anything good.

“Point,” Lucifer purred out, seemingly brought down from his apoplectic rage.

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. “So, you don’t want her dead?”

“Of course not, she’s  _ mine _ and if you try to hurt her I’ll rip your wings off. The next person to threaten her is going to be vaporized.” Lucifer nodded to himself.

“Which set?” Gabriel joked.

Lucifer just smiled beatifically at him. Gabriel shifted his wings so they were closer to his spine surreptitiously. Luci could be down right mean when he was defending someone he considered his.

“And are you sure she would approve of the vaporizing?” Gabriel asked.

Because, no, she really wouldn’t. Izareal loved them, all of them to the point where Gabriel was slightly worried about her. She’d tried to stop the Cage from opening for fuck sake, even though Gabriel knew she loved Lucifer more deeply than the rest of them combined.

“Why wouldn’t she? They would be a threat. If I took care of it she would be safe.” Lucifer's head tilted in confusion.

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose and resisted the urge to conjure a dunce cap over his brother’s head. That would probably get him swatted with a wing at the very least.

“Lucifer, I want you to consider for a second what, exactly Izareal did the last time our family got into an argument.” Gabriel started, waving the implication in Lucifer’s face as carefully as possible. “And then how she reacted when, after it was all over, how she reacted when one more of us was going to die outside of combat.”

Lucifer seemed to consider that for a few moments before he moved to speak once more. “Badly?”

“Yes, badly.” Gabriel gestured wildly at the understatement that had just passed his brother’s lips.

“I will go speak to her about this, her opinion is one I should hear first hand.” Lucifer concluded.

“No, wait, that’s a bad-” Gabriel stopped as he realized Lucifer had already vanished from the room. “Well fuck.”


	15. Chapter 13: End of Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets dropped into an illusion of the future, decides to play dumb, and tips Zachariah's hand.

“Sam didn’t make it out of Detroit,” the other Dean said, voice grim and face as blank as a stone wall.

“What do you mean he didn’t make it out of Detroit?” Dean asked. “Is he dead or a Vessel?”

The Other Dean blinked, clearly not prepared for him to know that little tidbit of information. Dean relaxed ever so slightly, he’d been shotputted through time before, had played this game in part when Cas had done it.

Izareal had laughed at the mere thought of an angel being powerful enough to allow them to change the past, so why would one be able to predict the future. If this dream, vision, whatever it was wasn’t natural and instead caused by Zachariah - the smarmy douche kept popping up so of course he had to be related to this somehow - then there would be discrepancies, tiny ticks to show that this wasn’t real.

“You already know?” The other Dean ran a hand through his hair, visibly trying to collect himself. “Fuck, right, I keep mixing up when shit happened. Sammy said yes in Detroit, we… we tried to stop him but, well...”

“Sammy’s never done anything but exactly what he wants to.” Dean’s lips quirked up in a grin. “Where was Z when all of this went down?”

The other Dean stuttered again, the world around them blurring slightly. Dean pretended that he didn’t notice, no need for Zachariah to realize he knew exactly what was going on.

It was a nightmare, the world around him, like a funhouse mirror reflection of what was and should be. Dean wasn’t stupid, he might act it to piss off Sam and was slower on the uptake than some of the people he surrounded himself with but he wasn’t stupid. His skillset just lay in vastly different areas to the truly intelligent people in his life.

He could recognize bullshit from a mile off for one and this, whatever this was that Zacharaih was trying to do here was grade A bullshit. It would have occurred to him eventually if Z hadn’t told him the grim facts of time travel but her assistance was greatly appreciated in the fact that it allowed him to pick out the little things that pointed towards Zachariah’s assholery faster than his instincts would otherwise.

The other Dean laughed, dark and bitter as baking chocolate. Then he stood and made his way towards the door, waving Dean to follow him. The other people sitting around the table had turned grim as they picked up various sheets of paper and slink off to their varying tasks.

Dean followed the asshole version of himself to the door.

“I’ve got something to show you,” the asshole said.

They made their way through camp until they were at one of the most eastern points of the wall. There was a structure there, a simple thing made of cloth and wood, more a tent than a true building.

There were candles arrayed around the opening, so many of them that Dean didn’t even try to count. They were a lot too, even though it was daylight and their glow couldn’t be seen beyond the flicker of the flame and the thin lines of black smoke that drifted into the air.

Asshole Dean pulled back the cloth opening of the tent and gestured him inside. Dean hesitated, half worried about what, exactly he was about to see, what his worst fear in regards to Z could be. He had some idea, what with the candles and the fact that Z had clearly been shaken by the fact that she was caught between Heaven and Hell, at the fact that everyone wanted her dead.

Except for them.

Except for Lucifer, but that hadn’t been truly confirmed.

“What am I going to see in there?” Dean asked the asshole mirror of himself.

“Just look,” the asshole sounded tired instead of just being a dick.

Dean just looked and immediately lost every once of air he had ever had in his lungs. Because, whatever he had expected it hadn’t been this, he hadn’t even thought it possible.

Z’s wing was laying in the center of the tent on an altar made of dark wood with an array of items fanned around it. Her angel blade, a gun that definitely belonged to Sam last he saw it, a few other things that had to belong to other people her life had touched. There was an urn in front of the altar, one that he was familiar with from other people’s funerals, one that had to be filled with ashes.

“Who… Who did this?” Dean breathed, forgetting for a moment that this wasn’t real. “Lucifer wouldn’t have, it would have alienated Sam and she was one of  _ his _ when she Fell.”

The world stuttered again and Dean shook off the fogging effect on his mind that seemed to be trying to creep up on him, to catch him unaware. He wasn’t going to let the angels lead him along their merry yellow brick road, down the path to saying yes to Michael, the angel so off his rocker that he honestly wanted to kill his brother before asking questions.

“We don’t know, one of the pagans, maybe. Sam was the one who found her and Lucifer didn’t show up long after that. I think they bonded over the grief and, well, the rest is history.” Asshole Dean was right behind him and Dean was sorely tempted to turn around and punch him in the nose.

Dean took a deep breath and turned to glare at the Asshole Dean, “And you kept her wing as, what, some kind of morbid momento? Even I know that that wing was the last connection she had to her family and you took it away from her?”

“What was I supposed to do? She was the one angel on our side! She took care of all of us with a song on her lips the entire time!” Asshole Dean snarled. “She was dead! Someone suggested ripping all her feathers out and turning them into talismans! This was the best I could do for her!”

“You know. It’s really fucking interesting what Zachariah think’s I’d do in this situation,” Dean said.

Asshole Dean took a step back, clearly unsettled by the comment. The world around them stuttered again, flickering noticeably this time, the terrain around them fogging and fizzing like an old motel tv that wasn’t quite in range of the good channels.

Dean grinned at the Asshole, teeth bared in a predator’s snarl. He knew the game, he played it before, been played by it before. It was never like this, never a literal twisting of his reality around himself rather than a mind game.

“Jigg’s up, asshole, Z already told me how time works and this ain’t it.” Dean snapped.

Watching his own form melt away to reveal the sneering, leering visage of Zachariah was the creepiest thing Dean had ever seen. The world around them turning to ash and smoke until he was back in his motel room, staring down an angel in a suit, only added to his unease.

“That little Fallen bitch is starting to become a problem for us,” Zachariah growled.

Dean scoffed in his face.

“I thought she was already a problem, you know with her whole, stop the Apocalypse plan,” Dean said.

“Yes, well, it’s just become more apparent in recent years.” Zachariah waves away the remark. “It’s a pity that Uriel didn’t get her when he went on his murder spree. She’s put far too much nonsense about free will into your head.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Oh, we were already like this before she showed up. She just gave her more information, information that you didn’t think was all that important at the time. Like the fact that angels can only be killed with celestial steel.”

That one was a lie, Gabriel had been the one to tell them about that one but it was the safest thing he knew that she could have told him. Z had been on Earth a long, long time and hadn’t taken up with the pagans like the archangel had. She’d seen a lot in all those millenia of life and she was one of the few who still used old school enochian to cast spells.

Zachariah went still, the same kind of still that Z had about her when one of them hit a nerve and her humanity fell away to show what she was underneath. The angels may have been wearing human guises, may have had access to the knowledge their vessels had had in life but they weren’t human. It was easy to forget that sometimes, even with Z, especially with Z.

“She told you about celestial steel?” Zachariah visibly bristled. “Well, well, well, her crimes just keep mounting don’t they. That is a secret guarded jealously by all those who know it. I wonder how she stumbled across the formula.”

And that was greed, plain and simple, lurking behind the angel’s eyes. The thought of being able to make something like that must have been a tempting thought. Dean may have not had Sam’s magical seeing abilities, the ones that had left him so shaken after seeing Lucifer in the grace that he hadn’t been able to speak coherently for hours but he was still a hunter.

Hunters lived on the fringes for the most part, unless they were like Ellen or Bobby who’d put down roots and turned themselves into hubs for other hunters. And while living on the fringes you tended to see a lot of things that polite society tried to forget about.

Dean had seen many a man too greedy for anyone’s good and most of them were willing to do pretty much anything to get what they wanted, be it money, sex, or blood. It never ended well for anyone involved in the situation and half the time jail time wasn’t the price the greedy sack of shit had to pay up.

In some of the larger cities Dean had been to, on the rare occasion that he was needed in a larger city, a good percentage of the bodies found in back alleys were Johns who refused to pay up. Or an asshole who’d stolen from the wrong person.

So yeah, Dean was familiar with the look of greed in a man’s eyes and what some people would do to get that gnawing pit of hunger filled. There was a reason greed was a sin, one of the few things Dean actually agreed with in the cosmic order of things.

“How’d you find me? Your sibling went and carved a map of the universe into me and Sam’s ribs,” Dean said.

Zachariah chuckled, an oil slick of a sound that made Dean want to go wash his ears out with industrial soap and holy water. “We do have human agents on Earth, Dean. What would the point of religion be otherwise?”

Dean nearly gave into the urge to face palm. Of course, of fucking course Heaven had a portion of humanity on their side. Dean thought back to the man that had been handing out pamphlets on the steps of the motel, the one he’d identified as a religious nut but otherwise harmless, and cursed under his breath.

“Now, it’s time for you to give up this little rebellious campaign of yours and-” Zachariah fell silent, eyes widening in horror as he looked at something just over Dean’s shoulder. “You’re supposed to be dead! How are you...”

“Alive?” A deep gravelly voice asked.

A familiar voice, a voice Dean hadn’t heard since Castiel had made his stand against the other angels, to give the Winchesters a few minutes of extra time. Time that had been meaningless in the end, his death a waste and a weight on his conscience.

Dean turned slowly to gaze at a face that he had thought he’d never see again. He let out a long slow breath as his gaze fell onto those gorgeous blue eyes.

He was alive.

Castiel was alive and standing behind Dean with his blade out, facing off an angel of a higher rank without an ounce of fear on his face.

“That’s a good question. How did Dean end up on that plane? Another good question, because none of our siblings did it, Izareal was the only one there and she can’t fly. I think we both know the answer though, don’t we,” Castiel said.

“No!” Zachariah snarled. “That’s not possible.”

“It scares you, doesn’t it?” Castiel’s lips twitched faintly. “It should, go away, Zachariah, leave the Winchesters alone. I won’t ask twice.”

Zachariah visibly hesitated for a second before there was the sound of angel wings flapping and he vanished, leaving Dean alone in his room with an angel he’d thought dead.

“Dean, I believe it best that we le-” Castiel cut himself off as Dean threw his arms around the other man and squeezed.

Dean took a deep breath in, taking in Cas’s scent so alike and yet unlike Z’s and almost nothing like Gabriel’s. Cordite and ozone, hot steel fresh from a forge and the strange airy scent that was pure angel.

After a few moment’s Cas brought his arms up to return the hug with a few hesitant pats against Dean’s back. Chuckling under his breath Dean let the awkward angel go so that he could hold him at arm’s length and just look at him.

“You’re alive, Z’s going to be fucking extatic.” Dean smiled at Cas.

“I… I do not believe that I would be welcomed by someone that I have threatened to kill. And one who so clearly had humanity’s best interests at heart when all I cared about was following orders.” Cas stared at Dean in that vaguely creepy, angelic way of his.

“Z won’t give a shit and Gabe’s probably just going to be glad that we have another angel on our side,” Dean said. “Shit, I should probably call them, the whole, let’s split up to cause less attantion thing ain’t gonna fucking work.”

“Gabe?” Cas asked as Dean patted himself down for his phone. “You do not mean the Archangel Gabriel, do you?”

“Yeah, he’s been hiding out on Earth,” Dean said.

“Gabriel is dead,” Cas said with the finality of a closed coffin.

Dean paused, finger hovering over the button of the speed dial and turned to look at Cas again. Right, Gabriel had admitted to purposefully faking his own death to get away from all the fighting rather than taking a stand like Z had accidentally done when she’d refused to fight.

In all fairness neither side would have left him alone for a minute otherwise but it was still a dick move in Dean’s opinion. Faking your death was just not something one should do just to escape an argument.

“Shit, right, everyone thinks he’s dead.” Before Cas could say anything else Dean hit the call button.

“Yello, Deano, what’s cooking on your side of the country?” A too cheerful voice chirped down the phone line.

“Zachariah just showed me a vision in an attempt to make me say yes.” Dean didn’t bother with preamble, Gabriel would just keep being an asshole if he did.

There was a long, drawn out silence and then a furious hiss that reminded Dean of a snake.

“He did what now?” Gabriel asked in a voice like poisoned licorish.

“Don’t worry, Cas showed up to scare him off,” Dean said.

“Cas, as in Castiel. He’s alive.” Gabriel sounded both scepticle and vaguely awed. “Where are you?”

Dean rattled off his motel and not even a second later there was a pint sized archangel wrapped around a poleaxed Castiel.


	16. Chapter 14: Pas de Deux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal gets away for a bit and Lucifer finds her.

It had been a long week, a long, tiring week and Izareal hadn’t really had a moment to breath since Lucifer rose from the pit. So when Sam had told her they were going to be stopping for a few nights so Dean could meet back up with them she’d taken the opportunity to go unwind.

She stood in the middle of an empty warehouse with pointe shoes on her feet and took a deep breath in, slowly and carefully, letting the air fill her lungs to bursting. He let it out slowly and then breathed in again, repeating the process until she fell into a rhythm that was more familiar than the flex of her wing.

Izareal reached out with her grace and turned on the stereo in the far corner with a flick of thought. Then she pulled it back, winched it in, pulling her grace in so tight that she was as close to human as she’d ever manage to be.

She bounces once, twice, up en pointe and down again, up en pointe and down. The next time she bounced up she leaned forward on one foot, bringing herself into an arabesk and began to dance.

Izareal started slow, started simple, worked her way up into jumps and turns. Worked her way up until she was dancing her way across the floor on feet that barely touched the ground.

She loved ballet, loved it almost more than music because when she executed a jump perfectly, when she hung in the air for just that moment more than she should she felt like she was flying again. Like her wings were whole and she was back in Heaven, flying beside siblings that were long lost to War and Death.

Izareal had loved ballet since it had been invented, she’d been there for practically every innovation, Pointe, jumps, partnering. She’d never danced with another person before had wanted to in the past, wanted that connection but… this was enough.

Izareal jumped again, hanging in the air like a feather on the wind, and came down wrong. It had been years since she’d landed wrong, decades probably but even well trained and experienced ballerinas fumbled occasionally and Izareal was no exception.

She knew what was going to happen before it did, she’d fallen enough times to know what to expect. She felt her ankle give way, felt herself tip forward, and internally winced at the fact that she was about to smack face first into concrete. While she would heal as soon as she let her grace out again that didn’t mean that this wasn’t going to hurt.

Then there were hands on her waist, cold hands, familiar hands even though the flesh stretched over them isn’t. They support her as she nearly falls, strong and sure, turning her fumble into another arabesk.

Izareal wasn’t thinking about it, not really, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to break the spell that the music and the movement had cast over the dingy warehouse.

She came out of the arabesk and pushed herself into a spin, letting his hands guide her through it until she twirled for a final time and she stopped with her eyes staring directly into his.

He smiled at her like she was the center of the universe and her chest ached with it.

“Lucifer,” she choked out past the lump in her throat, past every emotion she had ever felt for this angel standing in front of her, holding her like she was something precious.

“Izareal.” He breathed her name like it was a prayer, a benediction passed from shaking hands, like water on a dying man’s lips. “Izareal, I am so glad you are alive.”

“And it’s good to see you too, Lucifer.”

Izareal swallowed heavily and let the music cut out because he was here and she didn’t need it. Because while he wasn’t the Lucifer of Heaven, the Lucifer who’d plucked her out of her Choir and given her a purpose, given her life meaning and gave her the opportunity to be Named, he wasn’t the same Lucifer that had been cast down into Hell.

He wasn’t the same Lucifer who had come out of that plane cold and dark and dead to change Lilith, to twist the first female soul around and around until Lilith had snapped and become a mockery of what it had originally been. He wasn’t the same Lucifer who had snuck into the Garden and whispered in Eve’s ear, convincing her to disobey. He wasn’t the same Lucifer who had led his angels against those of his brother.

He wasn’t the same Lucifer who she’d risked her life for, who she’d given her grace for, who she’d jumped in front of a blade meant to kill for.

He was… he was different for both of those angels and the same at once. More than both and less than neither.

He… it… Izareal didn’t know what was different.

Lucifer was cold, that was true, cold like he’d been when he’d led the Fallen against Michael but it wasn’t to the same extent. It wasn’t the same cold, unfeeling grace of an Archangel pushed too far.

And it wasn’t the warm, almost burning radiance of someone who loved her and her siblings too much for words.

She didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know what to make of him. But he was here and she was here and she might as well make the most of the opportunity while he was still alive, while she was still alive.

While they were both still alive on this Earth, on this plane and Michael wasn’t breathing down either of their necks. There wasn’t much time for her to enjoy this, for either of them to enjoy this, a peace bought by blood and terror.

Lucifer let his head fall slightly to press his flesh and blood forehead against her own the press of his grace gentle and surface level, a relief given how hypersensitive her grace had always been.

She couldn’t see his other faces like this, the nightingale and the tiger that sat on either side of his face. But this was more intimate than being able to see all his eyes, all his attention focused on her through his human eyes, filtered by the man he was wearing.

Izareal couldn’t feel a soul in the body, couldn’t see one either and even with Lucifer being an Archangel she should be able to sense on being this close. So there was no soul in the body and Izareal could only hope that the man who had once possessed it was at peace.

“I saw you fall,” Lucifer whispered, “and I thought you dead. And now I find you alive, defending my Vessel and his brother even with your grace so diminished. I do not think I realized how much of a treasure you were until this moment, when I saw you fly without wings.”

That might actually be the most beautiful description of ballet Izareal had ever heard. And that didn’t sound like Lucifer wanted her dead, not now, possibly not ever.

Izareal licked her lips and took a deep breath before closing her eyes, unable to gaze into his any longer. It was hard, seeing him like this, so like the Lucifer that had taken her into his Choir and not at the same time, better than the Lucifer that had been at the gate, so much better but now she could see the places where he was ever so slightly off and it made her grace feel…

She didn’t quite know how it made her feel, she’d have to think about that now, just one more thing she had to think about.

Izareal opened her eyes and reached up to cradle Lucifer’s face between her palms.

*****

She was here.

Izareal was here and she was his and she was here. Lucifer had her in his arms, wrapped in his wings and he never wanted to let her go. He never wanted to see her hurt ever again, the sight of her Fall still hung before his eyes like the after image left by lightning.

She had her hands on his face, the feel of her skin warm against his own, her grace welcoming under his own. She was different but of course she was, it had been centuries since he’d seen her last and she hadn’t been trapped in a Cage by their Father.

No, instead she had been forced to walk the world alone with no one but humans and pagans and all manners of other filth for company.There was Gabriel but Gabriel himself had admitted to avoiding her for the most part. Lucifer couldn’t blame him, not when it had kept Izareal safe, he didn’t like the fact that he’d done it but he understood the reasoning.

“I can’t believe you’re out,” Izareal breathed, the air from her lungs brushing across his lips in an intimate manner that he’d never imagined flesh capable of.

“I’m out,” Lucifer agreed, staring into those green, green eyes, unable to look away. “I’m out and you’re alive, you’re here. Where’s your Choir little one, my star, the most precious of my angels?”

A flush pressed itself across her cheeks and Izareal inhaled sharply as Lucifer closed his eyes. He nuzzled into the hands holding the sides of his face, his own grace gently rubbing against Izareal’s in an attempt to return the physical affection with a form he was more familiar with.

Lucifer needed to be careful, he didn’t want to scare her, didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to run, to be left alone, by herself in a world that would never truly understand her. She was  _ precious _ ,  _ beloved _ in a way no one else ever had been and ever would be.

“They Fell,” Izareal whispered. “They Fell and then they died, not a one attempting to find me in the time between.”

Lucifer rumbled deep in his chest, a sound that his human throat probably wasn’t supposed to make if the pain signals coming from his vocal cords was any indication. He didn’t care though, his Choir had failed him, had failed Izareal, which was somehow worse.

A good portion of them had ended up on earth at one point or another and even if they hadn’t been there long, at least one of them had to have noticed Izareal, how could they not? Even though their bonds to her were severed that did not mean that she was no longer one of their own, one of  _ his _ .

“If they were not dead, they would pay for that indiscretion dearly.” Lucifer raised one of his hands to pet the back of Izareal’s head, grace shifting against hers to mimic the motion. “And I have been reliably informed that I should apologize for the demons.”

“I loved Lilith.” Izareal admitted and there was a flash of jealousy deep in Lucifer’s grace but that wouldn’t get him anywhere so he tamped it down. “She was… she was different. Defiant and strong and she refused to compromise on what she wanted and what she didn’t. She was… she was a bit like you but not, she was beautiful and she was the one who made me realize that I wanted to be beautiful like she was.”

“And then I turned her into something repulsive.” Guilt leadened his tongue as he thought of the human soul he had thought so little of but Izareal had clearly adored.

“No, she did that,” Izareal said.

Lucifer blinked and pulled back a bit so he could see Izareal’s face more clearly. She was frowning, a tiny crease appearing between her eyebrows and Lucifer wanted to smooth it away.

“All the other demons I’ve seen were twisted until they flipped, until the pattern of what they were becoming overlaid who they were. But… but you just gave Lilith power or twisted her until she could use the power she already had, I could never figure out which. She was the one who made the template that formed the mold that all the rest followed. In the end, I’m  _ not _ sad she’s dead, I mourned her a long time ago.” Izareal sounded sad.

She shouldn’t be sad. Izareal should never be sad ever again. Lucifer didn’t want her sad, it was even more sad than the fact that she didn’t have her animal faces any more.

It made him sad, and he almost reveled in the fact that they matched, their emotions in sink. But the fact that she was so human, so less than an angel should be made him twitch.

“I came to get you, you’re welcome with me. If you want to have a Choir again you can have it even if it’s just me and you,” Lucifer said.

He tried to hide his desperation, the longing for connection that had morphed into a need to have Izareal’s grace pressed up against his own until everything else was nothing but a second thought.

Izareal took a deep breath, something didn’t need but had to have been a habit from centuries of having to hide what she was. If Lucifer had his way she would never have to hide again, never have to supress what she was, never have to look over her shoulder for one of their siblings.

She would be safe and protected and happy and that was all that mattered. Izareal was all that mattered, besides Sam but Sam had Dean and Izareal had no one for years, decades and centuries.

Lucifer knew what loneliness could do to an angel.

Lucifer was what being alone could do to an angel.

Izareal pulled back, in grace and in her physical form and, no, no, Lucifer didn’t want that, didn’t want her anywhere but in his arms ever again. She was the last of his Choir, the most  _ beloved _ , even when she had been one of many, even if he still didn’t know what that meant for either of them.

But he let her go.

What else could he do? Keeping Izareal somewhere when she didn’t want to be there would be a violation, an aboration that he would  _ never _ attempt to force upon her. She was beautiful and  _ beloved _ and the last of his Star Weavers, had been the last for a while if he was being honest with himself.

“Lucifer, I can’t do that, I…” Lucifer watched her bite her lip as his grace curled in on itself in an attempt to hide the ache of being alone again. “You want humanity dead, don’t tell me that you don’t because right now that  _ would _ be a lie and you, for all the faults you may possess, have never lied. I will not, I  _ can _ not join you if I know that you still want to end the race that I have spent millenia protecting from those who would destroy it. It would  _ break _ me, more surely than Falling that final time did our siblings.”

Lucifer looked at her, at her form, so close to that of a human’s though she wasn’t wearing a human body, at her wings, one gone but for the stretch from back to first joint. He looked at her grace and where her two faces should have been.

Izareal had changed over the years, the centuries, since he had last seen her but that spine, that stubbornness that had made her stand tall and refuse both him and Michael when they had asked her to fight was still there. It might have even grown in intensity since he’d seen it last.

She wasn’t powerful, wasn’t any different from the other Star Weavers, and more diminished than she had been in Heaven but in that moment she shone.

Izareal.

The star of God.

Lucifer’s Father may have named the stars first but there was no name more fitting for one such as her. Lucifer may have been the Morning Star but Izareal was the one who embodied everything the Star Weavers had been.

And if she saw something in humanity then maybe, just maybe, he should take a step back and try to discover that for himself.

Lucifer bowed his head and then tipped forward into a full bow, Izareal’s wing rustling in shock as he did. He knew she hadn’t expected that, Archangels didn’t bow, not before anyone except for God and Lucifer had refused to bow to even him after he’d raised humanity above their siblings.

“Then, I leave so that I may find what it is you see and when I see it will you consider my offer?” Lucifer asked.

“Yes.” Izareal’s voice cracked on the word and when Lucifer straightened to look her in the eyes he could see the longing written in every line of her face.

Lucifer took a few steps forward to close the distance between them and leaned forward to let a kiss brush over her slightly parted lips. It was brief and eternal at the same time.

He hadn’t expected the simpleness of the contact to affect him but it sent shivers down his newly acquired spine and waves of desire through his grace. He wanted her more than a human needed air and he tore himself away before he could deepen the contact.

Lucifer took one last look at Izareal’s expression of shock and joy before he flapped his wings and was gone. He had a race to appraise himself of and a mission other than revenge to focus on for the first time in… since Izareal had Fallen.


	17. Chapter 15: A Meeting of Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone meets up and has a talk about the Lucifer situation.

Izareal was still vaguely dazed as she followed Sam into the roadside diner where they were meeting up with Dean in.

Lucifer didn’t want her dead.

The one sibling that she’d thought would want her dead the most wanted her alive, wanted her in his Choir again, wanted her with him again. It was… jarring to say the least.

She’d already told Sam about the weird fuckery that had occurred in the warehouse because she’d been worse the previous night. Izareal had still had her wings out when she’d walked into the motel room and hadn’t even noticed that she’d pulled them into the material plane.

Lucifer didn’t want her dead.

Lucifer had kissed her.

Why the ever loving Heaven had he kissed her?

“Oh, that is not a good thinky face,” Gabriel’s voice broke into her thoughts and she turned to glare at him.

“I’d like you to react to this situation with some measure of grace, brother dear. You may be used to possibly world ending shenanigans and cosying up with things that would rather bathe in the blood of toddlers than change a diaper but I tend to kill things who threaten humanities general wellbeing!” Izareal snapped.

Gabriel’s eyes went wide as he stared at her, those golden depths growing large enough to drown in as his animal heads pulled back in clear afront at her comment, the cheetah chittering in distress. It almost made her feel guilty but the back of her brain was still in a somewhat constant line of ‘what the fuck, Lucifer doesn’t want my dea, he kissed me, what the fuck’ and she wasn’t really proccessing anything else at the moment.

“Izareal, are you alright?” A deep, rumbling voice asked.

It was a voice that she hadn’t thought she’d never hear again after Dean told her exactly what had happened that night, before she’d showed up in an attempt to rescue them. She turned, catching sight of a middle aged man with dark hair and blue eyes, staring at her with a vague expression.

His wings were dark, the only spot of real color a shock of green feathers high up on his left wing. On either side of the human face sat under his flesh one were a jaguar and a crowned eagle.

Izareal made a noise she didn’t recognize, true voice a bit too close to the surface as she stared at a sibling she’d thought to be lost.

“Castiel?” She asked.

Her hands were shaking as she raised them to cover her mouth. It was too much, too much had happened in too short a period of time for her to really understand it. The world was falling to pieces around her, great chunks of it breaking off to float away in the eather.

Lucifer was out of Hell, had broken out of the Cage when she had failed to stop him from emerging from the Cage. Castiel had died, killed by  _ Raphael _ of all people, Raphael who had been the most gentle, the most kind of all her siblings, who had never raised a blade for any means, who’d never  _ had _ a blade. Lucifer didn’t want her dead. Lucifer had kissed her.

And now…

Castiel was alive. Castiel was standing right in front of her, wings flicking like a curious fledgling.

Which meant that their Father had interfered, for the first time since Mary, since the boy He’d claimed as His son.

“You’re alive. We… we thought you were dead.” Izareal’s wing flicked in distress.

“Shit.” Gabriel breathed. “Izareal? What’s wrong?”

“Yes.” Castiel took a few steps forward into her personal space and then bowed his head, no, his heads, all of them.

Izareal’s breath caught as she took a rapid step back as Castiel showed her the respect due an angel far above her Fallen station. Angels didn’t bow, not to each other, not unless they were talking to an Archangel or an angel so close in power that it didn’t matter anymore but there weren’t many of those left.

“I find myself in need of your forgiveness.” Castiel straightened, eyes boring into her own. “It would appear that I have unintentionally sabotaged your attempts to fulfil the mission that I had been given by my superiors.”

“You didn’t know,” Izareal said.

“I should have noticed before I did and I should have never threatened you, You may have Fallen but you are not a Fallen and I was unable to see past the only other moment that I saw you to what you actually were. I… many of my Garrison Fell during the War and after I am… familiar with how and why Falling happens and… you are not them.” Castiel’s wings shuffled in embarrassment.

“Choir,” Izareal corrected.

“What?” Castiel frowned, a little furrow appearing between his eyebrows.

“Choir, a group of angels is called a Choir.” Izareal took a tentative step forward.

“Not anymore,” Gabriel broke in. “They changed the name during the War, when God started making fledglings for War rather than Peace.”

“That’s wrong.” Izareal’s wing mantled in indignation at what had been stolen from the fledglings of Castiel’s generation. “That is wrong on so many levels, how could Father ever imagine doing something like that? We aren’t tools for him to make and designate for one purpose!”

“I don’t think he cares, sis,” Gabriel said.

And that had grown all new, creepy connotations with Lucifer having kissed her.

“I don’t think he ever did. And I think you know that.” Gabriel gave her a speaking look.

“Father may have named the stars first but he never treated us like tools.” Izareal left out the part where the only reason they hadn’t was the fact that God ignored everyone except for the archangels for the most part.

“Wait a minute,” Dean said from where he was halfway through his burger, “you mean your star isn’t named after you but the other way around. That’s fucked up.”

“And that was part of the reason most of my Choir left, Father never cared and Lucifer cared too much,” Izareal said, voice stuttering at the mention of Lucifer, not enough to alert the Winchesters but definitely enough to catch the angel’s notice.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her, like he was trying to stare through her physical form to see what was no longer underneath. Izarela narrowed her eyes right back, this was one of the few angels who wouldn’t hurt her even if Gabriel had been inclined to harm any of his siblings in the first place.

“Something happened, didn’t it?” Gabriel asked.

“Oh how clever, the big bad archangel managed to deduce that something was wrong. How much brain power did that take you?” Izareal snapped.

Gabriel stared at her and Cas looked ready to bolt under all of that angelic stoicism. That wasn’t all that surprising given what had happened the last time Cas had decided it would be a brilliant idea to stand up to an Archangel.

Finally Gabriel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking every inch of his eternity of existence. It was hard to remember that he was older than her, he acted like a little kid in a candy store half the time and like an avenging angel of snark for most of the rest of it.

“Just, tell us, please, Izareal,” Izareal’s spine stiffened, it had been centuries since he’d called her by her full name, “We don’t have much time, few allies and any knowledge is good for us to have if we’re going to hold the Earth against the combined forces of Heaven and Hell.”

“You can probably scratch Hell off our list of enemies,” Izareal said after a moment of hesitation.

Gabriel blinked at her in dumbfounded amazement. Castiel’s jaw actually dropped as he stared at her and Dean nearly choaked on his drink.

“What?” Gabriel finally managed to ask after a few moments of opening and closing his mouth.

“Lucifer showed up yesterday and I may have, possibly, convinced him to give humanity a chance?” Izareal bit her lip and glanced around the dinner to see if anyone was paying attention.

“How the fuck did you do that?” Dean asked.

“Um, isolation isn’t the best of punishment when it comes to angels.” Izareal fidgeted with the bottom of her shirt. “We tend to go a bit… sideways?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Gabriel scoffed. “The other would be completely bat shit crazy.”

“You and Izareal aren’t,” Dean pointed out.

Izareal snorted. “Oh, I’ve got more than a few screws loose, Deano, you just don't see them.”

“The demon obsession didn’t tip you off? Or the sugar?” Gabriel asked.

“That just seemed logical,” Dean countered. “And the sugar’s a tagline.”

“Can we get back to Lucifer not wanting to start the apocalypse?” Castiel interjected.

“Right,” Izareal jumped on the chance of a distraction. “Lucifer has been in isolation with nothing but Fallen for company since he ended up in the Cage. And, apparently, when he saw me he… fixated.”

“Fixated?” Dean asked. “That doesn’t sound particularly comforting.”

“It… Izzy, did he do anything to you when he found you?” Gabriel asked.

*****

Gabriel watched Izareal shift back and forth on her feet in mild horror. He didn’t think that Lucifer would hurt her, Lucifer hadn’t acted like he wanted to see her injured let alone do the injuring himself.

“How did you know that he did anything when he found me?” Izareal asked.

“Because the only thing that could get you this agitated in this situation would be my brother, if he somehow managed to surprise you,” Gabriel said. “Izzy, what did he do?”

“He danced with me and then asked me to join him in burning the world to the ground and once I told him I kind of liked humanity and didn’t want it dead and he promised to try to figure out why I like it so much he kissed me,” Izareal babbled out in practically one breath.

Gabriel blinked at her in mild disbelief, the last part of her statement rattling around his brain like a pebble in a shoe, scraping against tender spots and digging in to draw blood. Lucifer had kissed her?  _ Lucifer _ the single one of his siblings Gabriel had thought least interested in the physical plane as it related to sex had kissed Izareal, the most physically present of all of his siblings.

Gabriel had known that Lucifer didn’t consider most of the other angels as true siblings, there was a distance there but he had thought Lucifer considered all of his Star Weavers brothers and sisters. It wasn’t like they actually shared blood or grace, none of them could carry children and relations between lower level angels had happened before the War.

They called themselves brothers and sisters and shared the same Father, if God could be called that anymore, but they weren’t true siblings beyond bonds formed between individuals. From what Gabriel managed to get out of Castiel most of the angels treated each other like coworkers now, rather than family.

“He kissed you?” Dean barked from where he was sitting. “Do I need to stab him for you?”

“If I needed him stabbed I’d have done it myself,” Izareal barked back. “No, I don’t, I wasn’t fucking expecting it but…”

“Did you want him to kiss you?” Castiel asked, the expression on his face one of morbid curiosity.

“I… I don’t know,” Izareal said.

Gabriel took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat, hand going to tangle in his hair as he tried to think through the chain of events that had led up to this point. They’d all known that Lucifer was going to be at least slightly unhinged when he finally left the Cage, possibly more than a little unhinged considering the circumstances.

They’d all assumed that Lucifer would hang on to the thought of revenge, to plan for the destruction of the race that had been the root of the War in the first place or at least the idea of making Heaven pay. It would have made sense, Lucifer had been locked up because of the War and his Fallen had been systematically murdered by former siblings until there were none left.

Anger, grief, the desire to make everyone feel the pain he was feeling, all would have made sense for Lucifer to cling to in the Pit and he probably had. But Izareal had always,  _ always _ been different, been special in a way that Gabriel couldn’t name and not just because she hadn’t taken her own blade to her chest when she’d lost her wing and most of her grace.

Lucifer had loved all of his Star Weavers, more than the rest of them, more than Michael even, though that might have been a question of quantity. And all of them were dead, or unrecognizable due to Heaven’s new policies, all except for Izareal.

It made sense once you thought it through all the way from start to finish.

Izareal had been one of Lucifer’s Choir, then she’d set herself apart by refusing to join both Heaven and Hell in the War. She’d stayed neutral through the entire thing, watching from the sidelines until Lucifer’s attempted execution. At which point she’d jumped in front of the blade meant for their older sibling, well Gabriel’s older sibling, he didn’t think that Izareal considered him as a brother beyond the weird enochian linguistic quirk that translated the standard greeting between angels to sibling hood on earth.

That must have been the last time Lucifer had seen her, tumbling through the planes toward earth, almost certainly dead and if not near enough to it that she certainly wouldn’t survive past sunset. Even if Lucifer had been able to ride the Fallen’s minds and watch through their eyes none of them had dared go anywhere near Izareal, even if  _ they  _ knew she still lived and plenty of them didn’t.

Gabriel had seen enough grace wounds to know that what he’d done to Izareal would be described as a miracle under different circumstances, if he hadn’t botched it so badly. Lucifer had to have seen more given that he was actually fighting in the War.

Lucifer must have thought Izareal dead, gone, destroyed by his eldest brother and while Izareal hadn’t always shown her differences to the rest of them Lucifer had always reacted to her differently from the rest of his Star Weavers. The sight of her must have been a shock, enough of a shock to shake something loose in the Archangel’s brain and trigger the fixation.

Lucifer had always been more about love than anything else, even in the War, what little Gabriel had seen of it, that was what had stood out most. The warm love he’d always radiated turning to cold bitterness and hate as the battles drew on and he lost more and more of his Choir until he’d had to surrender.

“Wait, you’re all siblings, aren't you?” Dean asked. “How is this not weird for any of you.”

“That… that's a linguistic quirk,” Sam started to explain. “Enochian doesn’t have a word for friend or coworker, it just has familial titles and since enochian is their first language…”

“Still weird and vaguely gross.” Dean settled down more firmly in his seat.

“Okay,” Izareal interrupts before the conversation can devolve into an argument. “We don’t have to worry about Lucifer right now, he’s mostly contained and might actually be on our side in a few months. We should probably focus on Heaven and what the fuck Micheal’s planning on doing.”

“You trust humanity that much?” Gabriel asked.

He knew Izareal like humanity as a whole but he hadn’t thought she was this invested, this confident that experiencing the joys of humanity would be enough. Gabriel loved most of humanity and he regularly got frustrated enough to want to murder half of the populous for being ignorant, bigoted sheeple.

“I have to, it’s probably the only way we’re getting out of this mostly intact,” Izareal said.


	18. Chapter 16: Song and Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal and the brothers end up at the Supernatural Convention.

Upon meeting Becky for the first time, bright, lonely Becky who wanted human contact almost as much as she wanted Sam and Dean to succeed Izareal decided she liked her. Sure the woman was a bit strange and had some unhealthy coping mechanisms when it came to fanfiction but that wasn’t actually her own fault.

Izareal had seen the influence of the divine on her as surely as it was on Sam or Chuck and seeing a Prophet again for the first time in years had thrown her for a bit of a loop. In another time her manic energy would have been noticed and either tamed and turned to something more manageable or ensured she would be burned at the stake.

“Oh, wow, Izareal, it's so good to finally meet you,” Becky breathed in amazement, hands fluttering.

Izareal smiled and stepped forward to pull the other blonde into a hug. Becky made a small noise in the back of her throat and wrapped her own arms around Izareal to cling. Definitely a sensitive then, weaker than Sam and not a full fledged psychic but powerful enough to  _ feel _ what Izareal was.

Her time at school had to have been shit, the sensitive ones normally had the worst time of it. They felt too much or too little and children were cruel little things without even meaning to be. All they would have known was that the little blonde girl who preferred reading over running around was different and humanity had never been at its best with things that were different.

Izareal glanced around to determine the relative privacy of the parking lot before pulling her wing into the physical plane and wrapping it over Becky’s shoulders. Becky squeaked in surprise before burrowing further into Izareal’s embrace.

“Reading about you was amazing,” Becky murmured.

“Reading about her?” Sam asked.

Both Winchesters turned to glare at Chuck, who was visibly uncomfortable with the looks the brothers were shooting him. In all fairness to the prophet the two of them had been trained as deadly warriors meant to beat back the forces of darkness from birth, so their glare wasn’t exactly a tame thing.

“Come on, let's go inside before we have to lay witness to those three’s pissing match.” Izareal stowed her wing before dragging Becky away from what looked like the beginnings of an argument.

“You published more!” Dean roared just as the two women disappeared into the building.

“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” Becky said, still clearly dazed by the feeling of an angelic presence.

“Chuck finally got someone to back the rest of his series?” Izareal asked.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Becky practically chirped. “I was trying to convince him that digital publishing is the way of the future and that I know enough about book formatting that we could totally self publish his work but he kept saying that if he couldn’t make it in the publishing industry then he shouldn’t be published at all. When I pointed out he was already published he made this awkward grumbling noise and, well…”

“You decided to stop talking and save his fragile male ego,” Izareal guessed.

Becky cackled, the sound startled out of her like she just couldn’t help herself. They walked into the meeting hall and Izareal couldn’t contain her own sound of abject glee at the sight before her.

“You made a book convention.” Izareal gazed around at the people milling around, the excitement in the room palpable and the cosplay, oh the cosplay.

Izareal could not wait to see the look on the brother’s faces when they caught sight of exactly how many people had decided to dress up as them or her. She was actually a bit surprised that her own look was popular enough, with and without her wing.

“You alright?” Becky asked.

Izareal shook herself. “Oh, no, I’m fine, it’s just been a while since I’ve seen someone else with wings on the mortal plane.”

“And it’s hard to see someone else wearing your trauma.” Becky cupped a hand around Izareal’s elbow and shifted to lean into her side.

Izareal took a deep breath and let the other blonde try to offer up what little comfort human contact could convey. It had been a long time since she had lost her wing but the loss still hurt and most people didn’t understand that, most angels didn’t understand that.

Well, the angels didn’t understand why she didn’t take her own blade to her ribs but that was another matter altogether. But some humans got it, the ones who’d lived through things that no one should have to and wore their defiance on their skin like armor.

“Your encounter with Uriel was hard to read, reminded me of an ex I never want to see ever again,” Becky murmured. “Though, I stopped at punching him in the face and convincing the cheerleaders he liked licking feet, the immolation was satisfying.”

“I was honestly just trying to get away, Uriel was… I don’t want any of my siblings dead but I’m not suicidal. If I hadn’t managed to get the plasma mix right I’d probably be dead,” Izareal admitted.

“Do you consider Lucifer a sibling? Or, is that a bit too weird for you?” Becky asked.

“Um, I call him one of my siblings, there isn’t actually a distinction in enochian between emotional bonds but the emotions are different… he’s different and it’s weird. I don’t know how to describe it,” Izareal said.

“Life is weird, I don’t think anyone really knows how emotions work.” Becky wrinkled her nose up into an expression of irritation.

Izareal poked the tip and Becky yelped, swatting at the offending digit. They walked around after that, occasionally stopping to chat with other people but Becky never once left Izareal’s side.

It was comforting and a bit embarrassing for her to realize she was being so obviously uncomfortable with the few people that were wearing her wing but Becky didn’t seem to mind and neither did the majority of the cosplayers.

“There’s a singing contest for the people cosplaying Izareal if you want to participate,” Becky mentioned in a lull between conversations.

“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Izareal asked.

“I don’t think so, no one knows it’s you and if you don’t use your grace there really isn’t any advantage you can have over them.” Becky grabbed a water bottle, cracking the seal and downing half of it.

“About two millenia of practice say otherwise,” Izareal deadpanned.

There was the sound of an angel’s wings flapping, a bit louder and more varied than normal and Gabriel was standing next to her, a stupid grin on his face as he stared at her. Izareal realized with a vaguely sinking sensation that she was not going to get out of this without singing at some point.

“Oh, come on, Izzy, one song,” Gabriel weedled.

Izareal groaned, “Fine, one song but that’s all I’m going to give you.”

Becky squealed in glee and hugged Izareal around the waist with all the exuberance of a girl barely out of teenage hood. Izareal rolled her eyes as Gabriel pulled out his phone and started taking pictures.

They barely had to wait ten minutes for the karaoke to be set up and for the first few people to go before Izareal was shoved up on stage. The first song had been religious, one of the old ones adapted for modern music and the second girl had chosen something peppy enough to get the crowd riled.

Izareal wasn’t feeling peppy and most of the old songs were meant for choir so she’d made her choice accordingly.

“If I die young, bury me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses,” By the second line she was so absorbed in the song she didn’t notice the second Archangel in the audience.

*****

Humanity puzzled Lucifer.

It had been millenia since he had truly walked the mortal plane and years since the last of his Fallen had succumbed to Heaven’s forces. He started at the obvious places but quickly found that the large, sprawling churches meant to showcase his Father’s wealth and power were not the places where Izareal would frequent.

He bounced around a bit watching births and deaths, celebrations and people working their hardest to get by. It was… fascinating to watch someone so beaten down by life that they had no hope of ever climbing back to the top again stumbling through it nonetheless and getting by when they fell down.

Lucifer watched.

Lucifer watched as the humans changed before his eyes, adapting themselves to places and situations that by all rights should have destroyed them.

Lucifer watched the horrors of war and starvation and plague and just plain, ordinary human neglect and violence.

Lucifer watched people reach out to help others that they had no knowledge of or connection to before the moment where help was offered.

Lucifer watched sensless murder taking place on every corner of the globe.

Lucifer watched and thought he was beginning to understand why Izareal loved it so much.

They were…

Humanity was diverse and massive, a mixing and melding of so many personalities and experiences. They weren’t good or evil, though members of the populous definitely leaned toward one way or the other. They were chaotic in nature but strived for order.

It was fascinating and captivating and Lucifer found himself watching more and more intensely as time passed and it became less about trying to at least tolerate humanity for Izareal and more about watching humanity itself.

And then he found the Supernatural books.

That had been a laugh, the first laugh he’d had in centuries, to think that a prophet had been designated to write about the supposed end times and it was a two bit author barely scraping by by writing fiction.

Somewhat bad fiction at that, though Lucifer had no real reference for that kind of thing. It was… intriguing to read, to witness his Vessel’s hardship, even through the lense of supposed fiction.

And then he found out there was a so-called convention happening around the books and he couldn’t resist the temptation.

The convention center wasn’t all that large but Lucifer hadn’t really expected it to be, that the books warranted a meet up was astonishing in and of itself. He’d popped in outside and felt the presence of two other angels.

Two very familiar angels and the Vessels.

Lucifer had shouldered his way into the hall, he hadn’t expected the two of them to be here of all places but Gabriel had always been a massive prankster and the books were written about the Winchesters after all.

And then he heard her voice and Lucifer stopped, unable to move as the sound of one of his own singing reached his ears for the first time since before the Fall.

“Sink me in the river, at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song,” the notes were clear and clean, carrying over the crowd even though her voice was soft enough that it shouldn’t be heard all the way in the back of the room.

“Oh,” Lucifer breathed.

He had to lean back against the wall, his body’s legs suddenly unable to support his weight.

That was an entirely new feeling and the unfamiliarity of it was almost enough to send him scurrying off to try and find the source but… The source was all too obvious wasn’t it.

Izareal.

Izareal was standing on a stage and singing into a microphone with her beautiful eyes closed, every bit of her focus put into and behind her words. The machinery subtly warped her words, the sound of her voice but the music falling from her lips was still enough to make the heart inside Lucifer’s chest do a double time tap.

Lucifer hadn’t meant to Fall.

After all, how could you mean to do something if you had no clue that it was a possibility. But in that moment, as he watched Izareal sing about love and death with her hair a halo of gold around her face and her wing spread out even though it was tucked out of sight of mortal eyes he realized that he didn’t regret any of it.

Not his rebellion, not the Fall, not the Garden, not the Cage.

Each and every one of those decisions had been a stone on the path that had led him here, right here, watching Izareal sing until her breath was gone and her voice hoarse.

His eyes stung and something warm and wet slipped from the corner of his eye to roll down his cheek.

“Penny for your thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell um for a dollar,” Izareal sang.

“Brother,” Gabriel’s voice said from somewhere close by.

Lucifer turned his head to catch sight of him out of the corner of his eye. He was shifting on his feet, wings fluttering nervously on his back but that was the only real evidence of his emotions.

No threat, Gabriel had never been a threat, at least not to any of his siblings, humans were a different story but from what Lucifer had seen those were mostly scum of the earth that even Izareal wouldn’t miss. Lucifer turned his attention almost fully back to Izareal and her song.

“How long has it been since you’ve heard one of us sing?” Gabriel asked after a long pause.

“The Fallen… the fire scorched their vocal cords, along with their wings.” Lucifer tensed.

Gabriel just cursed under his breath, careful not to catch anyone's attention and then his wing was around Lucifer’s own. The devil shook slightly, under the touch, It had been too long since anyone had wrapped him up in their wings.

The last one… the last one had been Michael, before Lucifer’s one defiance, might have even been before Izareal was created. Lucifer was a fucking archangel, the second born, the most powerful of them all save for Michael. Why would he ever need comfort?

Why would he need protection? Affection?

What use had an Archangel for that?

“Gabriel, where are, oh,” a familiar voice said from his other side and Lucifer turned his head to look at the tall man staring at them.

Sam was young, oh so you, even by human standards, barely into his mid twenties but his eyes were older than that, old enough to make Lucifer shift uneasily. He didn’t want to disturb his Vessel or Dean or Izareal, he’d just… been unable to stop himself once he’d heard the music.

“Hello, Sam,” he whispered.

“Hello,” Sam breathed, taking a surreptitious step forward before he stopped himself, “What are you doing here?”

Lucifer’s eyes flicked back up towards the stage, toward Izareal. The song was starting to end, he should be leaving but she was mesmerizing, her grace sitting just under her skin, under the fasimally of humanity she’d pulled over herself like a cloak.

A hand touched his shoulder and he barely held back a flinch, wings fluttering in surprise as he whipped around to stare at Sam. There was an expression on the Vessel’s face, not pity but something very close to it, close enough that he nearly recoiled on instinct.

“It’s been a while since you’ve heard her, hasn’t it?” Sam asked.

Lucifer swallowed and nodded, eyes flicking between the stage and Izareal in an attempt to keep them both in focus and failing miserably.

“She compares us, you know?” Sam asked. “I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it half the time, she only told me about it once, said I was the brightest soul she’d seen in a long time. I didn’t even realize the comparison was there until I saw you.”

“You looked at him in the church!” Gabriel squawked.

“Yeah, kind of hard not to what with everything,” Sam shrugged as if the fact that his eyes weren’t burnt out of his skull wasn’t a miracle in and of itself. “Her set’s nearly over, should I tell her you were here?”

“No,” Lucifer snapped, not liking the panic that had started rising up in his blood, in his grace. “I’ll… When she calls me I’ll come but… I can’t, I can’t if she doesn’t want me!”

With that he pulled from their grasp and beat his wings, launching himself into the air and away.


	19. Chapter 17: A Handful of Grain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izareal gets hugged by a cupid and Famine... becomes an issue.

Izareal hadn’t been expecting the cupid to hug her, hadn’t expected the eager squeal and flutter of blush colored wings before she was swept up in arms too warm to be human. Her eyes went wide as she hugged back, staring in blatant confusion at the three men watching in mild horror.

His wings folded over hers, carefully folding her into a gentle embrace that his mortal form didn’t match. She took a deep shuddering breath and felt herself relax minutely.

It had been millenia since she’d been held but any of her siblings save for Gabriel, and Lucifer but she wasn’t thinking about that. She didn’t know this angel, had probably never met him, he felt young, oh so young, younger than Castiel.

“Izareal!” The cupid nuzzled into her as she held him, not pulling back. “It’s been so, so long since any of us have seen you.”

“I didn’t think any of you  _ wanted  _ to see me, given… everything,” Izareal murmured.

The cupid gasped and pulled back, looking up at her with big eyes and a slightly injured expression plastered across his face. “Who would ever make you think that? Tell me and I’ll smack them across the face with my wings.”

Gabriel snorted from where he was leaning against a storage crate. “I told you they don’t all hate you, you just keep refusing to believe me. Remel, mind letting her go, that body still needs to breathe, she’s more tied to this plane than we are.”

“Oh,” the cupid - Remel - started and let her go, “Sorry, sister, I didn’t mean any hurt.”

“It’s fine,” Izareal said slowly. “I take it you aren’t the one making people eat each other.”

Remel gasped, hands coming up to his mouth in shock, “People are eating eachother!”

“I’m going to take that as a no,” Dean muttered.

“Yeah, that’s your best bet,” Izareal directed at him before going back to talk to the cupid. “If it isn’t you we don’t actually know who it might be and it would probably be best for you to not do anything more here for the moment. Something is going wrong and we’re going to fix it but if you keep doing your job here, in this town, more things are going to go wrong and it's going to get a bit too muddled for us to figure out what exactly is responsible for everything.”

The cupid considered for a moment and then nodded slowly. Izareal let out a tiny sigh and smiled at him, his face lighting up in joy when he realized she was looking at him. He squealed again and stepped forward to give her another hug.

Izareal just rolled her eyes and draped her wing over his folded pair. He vibrated slightly and then went still, pulling back to look her in the eyes, head tilting to get a better look at her.

“It’s been a long time since one like you has shared a love bond, I’m glad that I got to see it before I left town,” Remel said, face completely and utterly serious before flapping his wings.

Izareal stared at the place he had been, completely gobsmacked by what he’d said. Love bonds, true love bonds, not the cobweb thin bonds that stretched between all members of the Host, was rare.

Sibling bonds were more common, as she remembered it, along with the webwork of a choir. Though, that might have changed, from what Izareal had managed to get out of Castiel Heaven had gotten far more… clinical over the years.

Love bonds, romantic bonds were different, special in a way and rare enough that out of the hundred plus angels that had been in Lucifer’s Choir there had only been two pairs. Izareal didn’t know why they were so rare, though she suspected that part of it was the fact that most angels were taught love in the braud, all encompassing sense and never thought of loving people in specific.

She hadn’t seen many outside of those five angels, she’d caught glimpses and had suspected Raphael had one considering the few times she’d seen him he’d never been too far from a young seraph who didn’t take anyone’s shit but she’d never been the best at telling the differences. It almost made her wish she’d known Ariel better back in Heaven, that angel had had an unairing talent for picking out bonds and emotion in general.

“Love bond?” Sam asked.

Izareal looked at him with a vaguely blank expression before shaking her shock off and smiling. The smile hurt but it wasn’t the bone deep gash it could have been, that it should have been.

“Romantic love, Samalam,” Gabriel chirped. “It’s rare and exceptionally powerful when an angel falls in love. I’ve never been good at recognizing the bonds myself but, well, cupids are the foremost expert on these things.”

“And we’re surprised that she’s in love with Lucifer, why?” Dean asked.

Gabriel and Izareal both turned to blink at him and at Sam, who was nodding along like this all made pitch perfect sense. Izareal wanted to scream at them that they were wrong, that they had to be wrong because love bonds weren’t a one way affair, they never had been.

And that meant…

“I mean you gave up your wing for him, and I know you say you would have done that for any of the others but… you nearly died, Z. That isn’t a small sacrifice to make.” Sam’s face was so fucking earnest that she almost couldn’t stand it.

“Mmm, true, true, but the thing is, love bonds aren’t one way, they can’t be or it turns parasitic rather than symbiotic. Being bound to someone you love, with all your grace, knowing that they don’t feel the same… well, that’s enough to drive most insane isn’t it,” Gabriel said.

“So, we knew Lucifer wanted her, he kissed her for fuck sake,” Dean said.

“That has a very different meaning for us than it does for humans.” Gabriel’s many wings fluttered.

Lucifer had been… different when she’d seen him, when he’d danced with her. She’d thought it was just a fixation, him clinging to the one good thing he could remember that he had left.

Izareal thought back on that meeting, on how he’d never taken his eyes off of her, at how he’d stared at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, like she was the center of his universe. He’d never looked at anyone like that before, not to her knowledge, not even their Father.

“ _ The most precious of my angels _ ,” Izareal murmured, only realizing as the words left her mouth that they’d been verbal.

“What?” Gabriel choked out eyes going wide. “Did he seriously call you that?”

Izareal nodded, one hand coming up to touch her lips. She hadn’t meant to voice that but the words were too much to keep inside, too big to hide away.

“Oh, wow, Lucy got sappy when we weren’t looking.” Gabriel whistled, rocking back on his heels.

“He spent millenia locked up in solitary confinement, I think he’s entitled to a little sappiness,” Dean grumbled.

“Let’s get back to the room, we need to figure out what the fuck is going on and that was our only lead so far,” Izareal said.

“Cassy was doing some recon, let’s find out what he has to say about everything.” Gabriel waved his hand above his head in a theatrical manner.

*****

“Famine, Famine, of course it’s fucking Famine, why the fuck wouldn’t it be fucking Famine,” Z cursed.

“I want to know who let him out of his fucking box, I thought he got sealed up back in the thirties,” Gabriel snarled.

Sam blinked, Gabriel had been laughing and joking barely a second earlier, chipper and cheerful as ever. He hadn’t known anyone could flick between emotions that quickly except in bad romance novels, which he’d read more of than was probably healthy.

“He was, I was the one that did the sealing,” Z growled.

“You sealed up a primordial force… do you think you could do it again?” Dean asked.

Z snarted and rolled her eyes. “Last time I had the element of surprise, Skadi, and a shit ton of prepreped spell work on my side. I have no clue how we’re going to deal with this this time.”

“Well, if all else fails we just need to get the ring off his finger.” Gabriel’s wings fluttered.

“Ring?” Dean asked from where he was examining a map of the area.

“All the Horsemen have them, break the ring’s contact with the main part of the vessel and… Sam, why are you clinging to me like I’m a teddy bear?” Z asked.

Sam blinked and looked down at her, slightly hard since he was wrapped around her like a particularly tenacious octopus. He didn’t quite remember doing that, or well, he did but the act seemed to be weirdly fogged but he knew he didn’t want to let go, not under any circumstance.

“I… I have no idea?” Sam said.

There was something inside him that ached, something deep and dark and dangerous. It made him feel hollow and like he’d never be able to get enough of Z pressed up against him.

It wasn’t sexual, he knew that much, nothing with Z ever was sexual but there was something crying out in the deep animal parts of his brain that wouldn’t shut up.

“Shit,” Z muttered and her wing became physical enough for her to curl it around him.

That was better, he didn’t know how but it made everything a lot better.

“I think Famine might know we’re here,” Cas commented from where he was hovering at Dean’s shoulder.

“That would be a safe guess, considering I can feel him. He keeps pushing at me, I don’t actually know how long it’ll take before I need to stop blocking him.” Z shifted a bit, not away but kind of around so she could face the others.

“What happens if you stop blocking him?” Dean asked.

“I don’t actually know what my deepest hunger is-” Z started.

“I can take a wild guess,” Gabriel interrupted. “You’ve had millenia without any sort of regular contact with other angels. I’d put good money on you ripping open your connection to the host and shouting their ears off.”

“Like they’d actually answer.” Z rolled her eyes.

“You are underestimating how compelling you are,” Cas grumbled, one hand going to Dean’s shoulder. “It was difficult to ignore you even when I thought you part of Hell’s schemes.”

“You actually thought that I wanted to end the world?” Z asked.

“It was the only logical conclusion I could come to with what little information was given to me… and the fact that you were one of Lucifer’s Choir may have been brought up more than once as a reason for you to be on the Apocalypse’s ‘bandwagon’,” Castiel actually raise his hands to do air quotes, it was hilarious, “you nearly died to save his life, your sacrifice had been noted.”

“Fuck sake,” Z sighed and leaned back into Sam. “I take it that all of them think that I wanted the Cage open.”

“Not now, not after you fought to stop the seals from breaking. At least not amongst the lower ranks,” Cas said.

*****

Famine laughed as Izareal stared him down, this was a bad idea, the primordial might have been weak, starved from years under the weight of the seal Izareal and Skadi had woven of grace and magic, but he was growing stronger by the minute. She could feel him, the weight of his presence burning across the shields she was trying desperately to keep up.

“You think you can kill me, little angel, you can’t even fly.” Famine grinned, at her, chapped lips pulling taught and white.

“I didn’t need to kill you last time, I didn’t even need to take a step in your general direction to crush you like the cockroach you are,” Izareal twirled her blade in her hand.

The power in the room built against her shields and she shifted her weight to distribute it more evenly, to give herself a better base to attack from. She hadn’t been built for battle, hadn’t been created or molded into it in the same way that Cas had been, that he was still but she’d spent the entirety of humanity’s existence on earth.

Humanity was violent, it was in their DNA, right down in the deepest, darkest parts of their psychology. Izareal had learned a lot over her centuries on earth and the ability to fight, the ability to hold her own against someone who was bigger and stronger than she was was one of them.

One of the demons scoffed and Izareal’s eyes flicked to him, assessing whether or not he was going to attack. The demon shifted nervously under her eye, the face under his skin twisting into a warped visage of panic and fear. He’d never had the eyes of an angel on him before and even if it was a half powered one like her the experience must have been unnerving.

And that second, that moment where her mind flicked to immediate danger rather than the constant threat of Famine’s influence was enough.

Her shields cracked under the weight of Famine’s power and she crumpled like a marionette cut loose of its strings. She heard Sam scream for her and Gabriel cry out in fear but none of that truly mattered to her in that moment.

There was a space inside of every angel, a space that was meant to be filled with the presence of their Choir or, if they didn’t have one, the Host in general. Their grace was meant to mix and mingle, weaving together like some complicated bit of lace, the pattern shifting and changing as time went on.

God was supposed to be a part of that pattern but Izareal had never felt his touch except in barely there ripples through Lucifer and in the moment when her Name had been burned into her grace like a brand. She’d thought of some of her actions as in service of her Father in the sense that all Heaven did was in service of him but that wasn’t really true.

Izareal didn’t know God, had never known him in truth and nothing she had ever done had been in service to him. In actuality the one thing she had ever served was her family, her siblings, Heaven as a whole rather than any one part of it, the web and weave so interconnected and beautiful in its complex difference.

That had been the worst part of Falling, having that comfort, that sense of community ripped away from you to leave nothing but an empty, aching pit of despair where the presence of the only family you had ever had once sat. The feeling of it never faded, never went away, it was always there, always waiting to swallow an unsuspecting angel whole.

Izareal hadn’t fallen with the Legion but she had fallen none the less and though she’d learned how to ignore the gaping hole in her grace, the pit that she’d learned to fill with humanity and their many gods, it was still there.

Famine ripped that hole open, emptied out the things that made the pain bearable, something that could be lived with and left nothing but the yawning empty maw of nothingness where her Choir had once sat. The darkness and lonely abyss of it opening and turning toward her like a flower toward the sun.

Izareal convulsed as the first wash of endless loneliness crashed over her head, dragging her under the surface. It hurt, it hurt like nothing else she’d ever felt, the only thing worse the loss of her wing but that had hurt enough that she hadn’t been coherent with it, hadn’t been able to focus past the agony as the seconds dragged into minutes into hours while Gabriel tried to save her life.

She was able to focus now, able to feel every excruciating second of it.

Izareal choked in a breath, threw her head back, and screamed and screamed and screamed.


	20. Chapter 18: Round the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer has a conversation with a human child and then goes to rescue Izareal.

“Are you an angel?” The little blonde girl peered up at him with narrowed eyes.

Lucifer blinked down at her, he hadn’t exactly expected that kind of reaction from a juvenile human barely into the beginnings of maturity. Then again, that phrase had been asked of him before but never with so much suspicion aimed his way.

“Why yes, I am,” Lucifer said, seeing no reason to lie to the pint sized human trying to eviscerate him with the power of her mind.

It is, Lucifer admits, incredibly adorable and reminds him of the one time Izareal had nearly a chunk of Azazel’s feathers out when he’d interrupted a particularly complicated bit of Weaving. The memory almost made him wish he could see what Izareal would have looked like had she truly Fallen but, no, he wanted her as she was.

Izareal was perfect as she was now and he’d accept no other view point.

She could do with more power, he’d  _ give _ her more power if she asked it of him, feed her his own feathers and blood, but if she never grew beyond what she was, never became more in a way that would benefit her beauty Lucifer wouldn’t mind.

“Do you know Castiel?” She asked, spitting his little brother’s name like it was an especially dirty insult.

Lucifer blinked at her.

What could his younger brother have possibly done to warrant this level of ire from a little girl? He’s honestly curious about that because Castiel genuinely liked humanity from what little Lucifer had seen of him.

“Yes, he’s younger than I am but I have encountered him a time or two,” or a hundred times on the battlefield, Castiel had been an impressively blood thirsty little thing despite his youth.

“He has my father, I want him back,” the little girl looked at him as if Lucifer would be able to do something about that.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow.

Ah, this was the daughter of Castiel’s vessel, then. Lucifer could see the resemblance now that he thought about it but how the little girl knew about angels was a mystery.

Had the littlest angel been so indiscreet as to actually let the tiny thing see him claim his vessel?

“I have no idea how you would like me to solve that problem for you, little one, I’m not exactly on Heaven’s best side at the moment,” Lucifer said.

The girl huffed and actually stamped her foot before visibly deciding that trying to convince him of anything else would be a supremely bad idea. The girl had definitely met angels before then, or at least, been in visual range of the utter bullshit Zachariah and his ilk were able to produce.

“Would you like an icecream?” Lucifer asked. “I’ve heard talking about these things sometimes helps one deal with them.”

Which was how Lucifer wound up sitting on a park bench with a cone of black cherry ice cream while a little blonde girl told him all about how her father was being possessed by an angel. Apparently, Castiel had gotten into a spot of trouble with the higher ups in Heaven and had lost his earth privileges for a while.

The vessel had gone back to his family, got tracked by demons, and the Winchesters had had to intervene. Claire had gone a bit quiet as she got to the part where Castiel had come back.

“I just wanted my mom to be safe,” Claire had muttered.

She’d been a vessel, she’d been a vessel for a total of fifteen minutes. Lucifer had made a choking noise and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Children weren’t meant to be vessels, they shouldn’t be vessels, they were too young to deal with it, too impressionable and too mercurial all at once. There was too much risk to both the angel and the human in question.

Claire was coping though, as well as anyone could. Her mind hadn’t been overwritten and she hadn’t over written Castiel so they’d gotten off better than the three Fallen who’d tried to possess children.

But apparently her mother… wasn’t.

Claire hadn’t been spucific about it, Lucifer didn’t think she could be at the moment. There was a pain to her words, deep and bleeding like someone had sliced her stomach open and spilled her guts all over the grass at their feet. The wound needed time to scab over before the words would pore out.

Lucifer tilted his head and peered down at her, running his eyes over the soul lying under her skin. If he didn’t know better he’d think he was looking at a fledgling, the tendrils of her soul had been affected by Castiel on a level that he didn’t recall seeing before and he was sure he would remember, even if it had only been through Fallen eyes.

It might have been because Castiel was young and had absolutely no idea what he was doing, it might also have been because Claire was especially stubborn. Either way Lucifer couldn’t wait to introduce her to Izareal.

He was almost certain that the other angel wouldn’t approve of him kidnapping the little girl right now but once she met Claire, and found out her family situation, he was almost certain she’d agree that the girl was better off away from her mother.

“I’m going to warn you that your father might not be alive anymore, angels are not the best at taking care of our vessels. There isn’t a lot that can hurt us but that can still hurt our bodies. It might not even be Castiel’s fault, I know of at least two angels that wouldn’t have hesitated to pull your father’s soul from his body after the little incident you witnessed.” Lucifer took another bite of his ice cream.

“I know, I’ve actually read the bible. I don't think many people have because angels… you aren’t nice are you?” Claire asked.

“No, most of us aren’t, Izareal might be the only one of us who is truly kind. Maybe some of the cupids but those of us you’ll encounter most often were built for war. Were built for The War,” Lucifer confirmed.

“So which one are you?” Claire asked.

“I’m… well, I’m Lucifer, little one,” Lucifer admitted.

“Oh.” Claire peered up at him with sceptical eyes. “You don’t act like the people at church say you would.”

Lucifer wrinkled his nose, organized religion. He had no idea which demon had come up with that particular concept or if it had been a demon at all but whomever they were had probably gotten a medal.

“A lot of stories have been blown out of proportion with time. I’ve been… absent from this plane for a long, long time.” Lucifer tilted his head back to peer at the sky.

“Humans have a hard time comprehending things bigger than themselves,” Claire pondered.

Lucifer returned to his ice cream and then something brushed up against the outer layers of his grace.

Lucifer paused mid lick and his head snapped up. The little girl sitting next to him cocked her head, a questioning look on her face.

“I think I need to go,” he said after a moment of trying to parse the sensation.

“Is something wrong?” Claire asked.

“I think someone’s in trou-” Lucifer cut himself off as Izareal’s grace hit him like a ton of bricks.

He couldn’t even make out any words, she was just screaming. But the scream was full of so much emotion that Lucifer could almost choke on the sound of it.

Fear and grief and pain all threaded through the sound, through the press of her grace.

“Go! She’s hurt! Go!” Claire cried and Lucifer spent a second to marvel at the fact that she could feel exactly what he was feeling.

Lucifer flapped his wings and took off, ripping through the planes as he went, not caring who heard or saw or what angels felt him as he went. Izareal was in pain, Izareal should never be in pain after what she’d had to endure.

Whomever was responsible for this was going to pay.

*****

Gabriel clapped his hands over Sam’s ears and winced as his own eardrums popped. Izareal’s voice wasn’t entirely human at the moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her throat was bleeding, vocal cords streading under the force of her grace.

Or that would have happened if she was human, if her body was human, it was hard to remember that it wasn’t, that it was just her physical form.

Gabriel tried to reach out to her, tried to touch her mind with his own, backpedaling abruptly when he felt what was going on inside her mind. There was a black hole in the center of her grace, a space that the rest circled around, gaping and bleeding and  _ empty _ .

He pulled back fast enough that he would have given himself whiplash if he was human, he couldn’t look at that, couldn’t bear to watch it, to feel it even if the sensation was second hand.

Gabriel had never fallen, not truly even though he hadn’t been in Heaven since the War. He didn’t think that he could Fall, given his nature as an Archangel, Lucifer hadn’t truly Fallen either, not in the way normal angels did.

He’d met Fallen before, both of the Legion and not but he’d never lingered around them for extended periods of time. They were  _ hunted  _ in the case of the Legion and watched carefully in the case of all others, those that had removed their grace.

The only angel he’d seen with any regularity was Izzy and he’d never risked staying with her for too long. He’d wanted to, wanted that connection with his family, wanted to comfort the sister who he had quickly discovered to be one of the best of their family but she had already been Fallen, already been on thin ice with the Host and he hadn’t wanted to make it worse.

But in all the time Gabriel had known Izareal she had never given any indication of the pit at the center of her being. He’d seen her angry, sad, grieving, laughing, joyous and furious but never once had he seen her in pain any more tangible than that caused by grief.

No, that was a lie, she’d been in this much pain before, the memory of the moment burned into Gabriel’s grace like a brand, like his own name had burned when it was bestowed upon him.

But she hadn’t screamed then, hadn’t even reached besides the tears that had seared themselves down her cheeks. She’d been silent as she bleed out on his hands, grace flowing faster than he’d thought he could stop.

He’d had to pull her into the physical realm to save her, to cauterize the wound, to stop her from dying in his arms. He’d been surprised at her form, at how human she looked because even though he hadn’t made a point of remembering who was in what Choir he’d known she was a Star Weaver.

Though her form had been a bit of a lucky break considering she’d been stuck on that same plane since she’d survived that traumatic bit of healing.

Gabriel should have left her to die then, even if it would have broken his heart, there’d been too much risk of someone finding him in the hours he spent healing and then trying to get Izareal to respond to him. But he hadn’t, he couldn’t have just left her there.

And he couldn’t just leave her to suffer like this without any support.

Gabriel took in a deep breath that he didn’t need and began to reach out again.

“I’d stop, if I were you,” said a familiar voice.

It was cold and deep, as smooth as chocolate as it tipped off a tongue sweet with poisoned wine. It was also completely and utterly livid in a way Gabriel hadn’t heard since before the Fall.

He turned his head, making sure his hands were still cupped over Sam’s ears to stare at Lucifer. The other angel wearing an expression that said he would happilly murder Famine and dance on his ashes, his wings were arched over his head, almost on the physical plain, white as the hottest of flame with an edge sharp enough to cut if provoked.

Lucifer was definitely provoked now.

Famine dropped his influence enough for Izareal to stop screaming, the little hitches of her breath tearing at Gabriel’s heart like the sharpest of blades. The entity turned to smile at Lucifer like a dog just noticing its master.

“Lucifer, shining one! It’s good to see you again! It’s been so very long since I’ve seen you! Have you come to give me my orders at la-” Famine choked on his own voice as Lucifer’s hand wrapped around his throat in a vice like grip that cut off his air.

“Orders?” Lucifer purred. “What orders would I have for a washed up little pustule like you? This form is even more pathetic than the last one I saw you take. You really should have stuck with the half starved cat.”

Lucifer’s blade slipped into his hand with an ease that made Gabriel shiver before the other archangel plunged it into Famine’s chest. He jerked the blade up and around before dragging it up, slicing through the entity’s chest like it was made of tissue paper.

Light flared, burning Famine from the inside out, the power of it enough that Gabriel would have had to blink back spots if he were human. Lucifer’s eyes flashed a bright, red as the entity disintegrated under his hands, the ring that had been on his finger falling to the ground with an audible thump.

Lucifer pulled back, eyes glowing a bright red in his face, like hot coals, like the heart of a red dwarf star. He took a breath, wings flicking as he folded and refolded them again and again.

“Lucifer?” Izareal asked from the floor, voice not showing a trace of the trial she’d put it through.

Lucifer was away from the wheelchair Famine had been using and kneeling by Izareal’s side in less than a second, one hand outstretched but hovering over her cheek. Gabriel rolled his eyes at his brother’s hesitance, it wasn’t like it wasn’t obvious the two of them were completely gone on one another.

Granted, Lucifer was also completely coo coo for cocoa puffs after so long in the fucking Cage but still.

Izareal smiled up at him, face all soft and tender and Gabriel almost gaped as Lucifer melted under her gaze. Gabriel hadn’t known Lucifer could do that! Go from murderous to sappy puppy in under a second.

What the ever loving fuck?


	21. Chapter 19: The Awkward is Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful situation of coming back to a motel to find the devil wrapped around one of your few friends.

Dean took one look at Lucifer and made a noise of choked off amusement flavored with mild horror. He’d been ready for it, kind of, the cupid had made it pretty clear that Izareal was going to end up cuddling up to Lucifer at some point.

He just hadn’t expected it would happen this quickly, or literally.

Dean turned to look at Gabriel and gestured at the archangel shaped limpet that was clinging to Izareal. Izareal didn't seem to exactly mind the clinging but it was still incredibly unsettling to watch the literal fucking Devil cling to a woman Dean considered all but a sister at this point.

“So, the apocalypse has taken a bit of a rain check,” Gabriel said, face as deadpan as he could make it.

“I can see that, is Famine dead?” Dean asked.

He assumed Famine was dead, the effects of the Horseman’s influence had cut off half an hour earlier but he and Cas had been in the middle of killing demons at the time and it was always good to double check. He and Sammy had learned that lesson repeatedly and painfully until it stuck.

“Yeah.” Sam called from the bathroom, leaning out of the door and Dean had a brief moment of panic when he realized his face was half covered in blood. “Lucifer stabbed him and exploded the demons when they tried to come for me and Gabe.”

“He refused to let us clean the blood off.” Z commented when Dean shot her a dubious look.

“It feels really fucking weird when you use grace on me.” Sam ducked back into the bathroom.

“Okay,” Dean breathed into the silence that fell over the room after that. “I take it his powers are getting stronger.”

Dean turned to consider Lucifer.

The Archangel looked as smug as a cat who’d gotten the cream, killed the canary, and was eating a nice fatty tuna for dinner. He had both arms wrapped around Z’s waist and had looked up from where he was nuzzling her shoulder to examine Dean.

Or maybe it was Cas he was looking at, considering how fidgety the angel had suddenly gotten.

“Castiel, I take it,” Lucifer murmured, voice barely loud enough to care across the room.

A shiver went up Dean’s spine, there was something in the angel’s voice, something unlike every other angel he’d ever met, soft and hard all at once. It was like… like music, like Z sounded when she slipped into enochian to sing songs older than humanity. But he was just talking, how the fuck was he doing that.

“Lucifer,” Castiel replied stiffly.

“Ah, I remember you now, you’re one of the few who survived going toe to toe with Uzza.” Lucifer cocked his head, eyes looking curious.

“Uzza?” Z asked.

“Denebiel, some of them picked a new name when we Fell. Many of them did, they asked me to name them at first but…” Lucifer hesitated.

“It felt wrong?” Z asked after a moment.

Gabriel made a noise and flapped his hands at them. Z’s lips twitched in the way of all younger siblings, his wings must have been doing something incredibly interesting.

“Oh my fucking Dad you two. Stop, please, for the sake of my sanity. You two might not be siblings but I am both of yours,” Gabriel yelped.

“What?” Dean asked, completely lost.

“They’ve got their grace wrapped around each other right now.” Sam emerged from the bathroom, mostly clear of blood save for his clothes. “They keep passing information back and forth, I’m assuming it looks different to Gabe than me.”

“They’re practically making out on your bed, Sammy,” Gabriel flapped his hands around and Sam jerked to avoid what was probably a wing.

Sometimes Dean felt like he was missing half the angel’s social cues with the absence of the wings that literally everyone else in the room could see. This was definitely one of those times, but Gabriel had been on Earth long enough that his cues were pretty simple to interpret.

It helped that Dean had been in that particular state of brotherly indignation before. Living out of motel rooms didn’t exactly give them a lot of privacy.

“I think it’s sweet,” Sam practically cooed.

Gabriel sputtered and a smile began to twitch at the corner of Z’s lips.

“I must tentatively agree with Sam,” Cas sounded vaguely shocked at his own emotional response. “The interaction of their grace is… pure and… more chased than some of the pairs I have known.”

Z grinned, teeth sharp and pure white as the smile on her face lit up the room around her. Lucifer sighed and buried his face back into the crook of her neck, relaxing by increments until he looked almost asleep.

“Soooo,” Dean drawled, trying to cut off the angel shenanigans before Gabriel had an apoplexy. “If his side of the apocalypse is cut off how are we dealing with the management upstairs?”

“Can we think about that later? Please? It’s been a long fucking day,” Z sighed.

Gabriel shook his head and reached up to press his temples like he had a headache. Dean did know that angels could get headaches, then again this whole situation was enough of a mind boggling cock up as it was.

“I just want to know who decided letting Famine out was a brilliant idea. You said you’d sealed it off with Old Enochian script rather than sigils. How many angels would be able to break through those.” Sam leaned back against the wall.

“I’m trying not to think about that. There are at least a hundred angels with enough knowledge to unravel that net but the pagan power Skadi sank into it,” Z trailed off when Gabriel made a little choking noise.

“Skadi, you asked Skadi to help you with that?” He asked.

“Oh, calm down, she doesn’t want to castrate you anymore.” Z rolled her eyes.

Dean wanted to know the story behind that but decided to set it aside for the moment. Z would tell him later if he asked nicely, or maybe Lucifer would because the incident was pretty funny judging by the shaking of his shoulders.

“Now, normally pagan magic wouldn’t be enough to stand up against angel grace but Skadi is… old, old enough that she might actually be older than the settlements that became norse settlements. The fact that she used her specific talent, her area of worship to help with that seal  _ and _ the fact that the norse pantheon is still worshiped, even indirectly boosted that.” Z reached up to run a hand through Lucifer’s hair, scratching at his scalp.

“Fuck sake, have you ever heard of over kill, Zeezee?” Gabriel asked.

“No such thing,” Z said dryly.

“Whoever did that’d have to be at least one step down from an Archangel to break the bindings.” Gabriel ran a hand through his hair.

“That’s what has me worried.”

*****

“Hey, Lucy, can I talk to you for a minute?” Gabriel asked.

Lucifer looked up from the forms of his Vessel and Izareal curled up together. He thought he should be jealous, that the presence of anyone so close to  _ his _ Beloved would trigger a violent reaction, especially with her slipping into a meditative state to try and patch up the holes Famine’s teeth had torn out of her.

Lucifer had offered to help, to give her power, to cut pieces off of himself to give to her but she’d just smiled at him, soft and sweet and a bit sad. She’d shaken her head and pressed a feather light kiss to his collarbone.

“No, Lucifer, no.” She’d whispered against his skin, sending prickles down his spine. “You don’t need to do that for me, you never need to do that for me. And I need to do it myself.”

He hadn’t quite understood why but she had said she wanted to do it herself so he’d step back. Lucifer wanted her happy, he wanted her safe and forcing help on her would be… abominable.

Consent was important. He didn’t fully know why yet, knew that his brain was in tatters, that his grace was damaged to a point that he might never recover from but he didn’t mind.

Izareal was here and Sam was here and they were both  _ his _ in a way that felt right, if not maybe complete. His morals might be a slippery thing but they’d help anchor him until he could learn the rules of the mortal plane beyond the bare basics.

“Yes,” Lucifer said.

He turned slightly to look at his younger brother. His wings flicked with a nervous energy as he watched Lucifer from behind lowered lashes. Whatever he was about to say might not sit well with Lucifer and he knew it.

“I won’t hurt you,” Lucifer reassured.

“No, you won’t, will you.” Gabriel cocked his heads in a quizzical manner.

It was a statement, not a question even though it was phrased like one. Lucifer cocked an eyebrow, a motion he’d learned from observing an elderly school teacher trying to settle down a classroom of rambunctious teenagers.

“You,” Gabriel paused to consider his next words. “You aren’t sane, are you?”

“No,” Lucifer confirmed.

Gabriel blew out a breath he didn’t need and slowly sank to the floor. He didn’t kneel, instead folding his legs into a configuration to resemble a pretzel and resting his hands behind him so he could lean back and stare at the ceiling.

“The Cage really fucked you up, didn’t it?” Gabriel muzed then rushed to say, “Don’t answer that.”

Lucifer shrugged but didn’t interrupt.

“Look, I just need to know if you’re going to go off to hunt down Michael like some warped game of cat and mouse? I know you don’t want the world to end anymore but…” Gabriel trailed off.

Lucifer considered being angry about that but it was a reasonable question. Gabriel had been dreading that exact scenario since… well since the Fall probably and the War had just reinforced that fear.

“I won’t fight,” Lucifer replied. “If Michael comes then fine but I won’t start it.”

“And if he does come for you, if  _ you _ have to end it?” Gabriel asked.

He looked so young in that moment, young in a way they’d never been, in a way that they’d seen the other angels be but had never been allowed themselves. Lucifer paused, looking at his younger brother and then glancing back at the two people that mattered most to his scattered scraps of sanity.

“I refuse to lose them, to lose her.” Lucifer murmured into the still air of the motel room, eyes fixed on Izareal. “And if I raise my blade to Michael I will.”

Gabriel’s indrawn breath sounded like it hurt. Lucifer didn’t look at him, he couldn’t look at him, not now when the other Archangel looked so vulnerable. They weren't allowed to be vulnerable, they were the ones who were supposed to protect the vulnerable members of their race.

“That’s signing your own death warrant,” the last word came out in what sounded like a sob. “She’d be devastated.”

“I know.”

“She gave up a wing for you.” Gabriel sounded accusing, half a step from anger.

“You think I don’t know that?” Lucifer turned to look Gabriel dead in the eye. “You think I don’t look at her and see a miracle? You think I don’t know the price she paid to save my life? She has given more than any of us could ever dream of. And it was for me, so yes, Gabriel, I will not fight if our eldest comes for me because if I kill any of our siblings it would spit in the face of what has given me.”

Gabriel swore, at length and in ten separate languages.

“Alright, alright,” the younger archangel said after he’d calmed down. “So mission Stop the Apocalypse isn’t going to involve fighting. We’re going to need a brilliant fucking plan if this is going to go in our favor.”

Lucifer hummed before giving in to temptation and curling up around  _ his _ Izareal. That was a matter for tomorrow, possibly even later but for now Lucifer was going to join Izareal in meditation and bask in the fact that the two most important people in the world were right here, with him, in this moment of peace snatched between the moments of chaos their lives had become.


End file.
